Spanish Woman with a Tamborine 1909

Henri Matisse conjured this Spanish Woman with a Tamborine using paint and canvas; a straightforward act, really, but the painting itself? Anything but! Look at how the blue spills around her form, a colour that's both background and atmosphere, pushing and pulling the figure forward. And the way Matisse renders her skin, a lemon yellow that's not quite real, but feels oh-so-right in this world of colour. The red flowers in her hair practically vibrate against the cool blue, a dance of contrasts that animates the whole scene. What grabs me most is the directness of the marks, confident and unapologetic. It's like Matisse is saying, "Here, this is how I see her, take it or leave it." There's a similar boldness in the work of someone like Alice Neel, who also wasn't afraid to lay bare the raw emotional truth of her subjects. It’s this shared commitment to the messy, imperfect reality of seeing that makes their work so compelling, don't you think?