Moorish Woman 1922 - 1923

Henri Matisse made this painting, Moorish Woman, with oil on canvas, and there is a lovely play of pattern and colour to explore. Matisse’s approach is all about laying down colour, one next to the other, and trusting that they will vibrate in relation to each other. Look at the various floral patterns he's deployed in the background, and the semi-nude figure reclining across the foreground plane. The paint is thinly applied and yet still full of movement. The details are so evocative, such as the tiny green cross adorning the figure’s turban, and the gold jewellery at her neck and waist. There is also a beautiful passage of brushwork around her feet and ankles. Here Matisse is creating both definition, but also, paradoxically, an ambiguous or incomplete rendering, which invites us to engage with the process of image making itself. Thinking about the Moorish theme, this painting, for me, has a lot in common with the work of Eugene Delacroix, another painter interested in orientalism. Both artists really invite us to revel in the magic of painting and its multiple possibilities.