Goldfish and Palette 1914

Henri Matisse painted ‘Goldfish and Palette’ with oils, sometime in the twentieth century. The painting is an exploration of process, as those loose, sketchy marks construct a window, a bowl and the titular palette. Looking closely at the surface, there's a real thickness to the paint. You can see how he's layered the blues of the background and how the brushstrokes give depth and texture. The goldfish in the bowl are like commas, floating in a sea of white scumbles. I love the black verticals that run almost the full height of the painting. They ground the image, and add a sense of gravity, and yet they are also completely open to interpretation. Matisse reminds me of Morandi who made work by returning to a similar set of objects again and again. Like both artists, we can keep looking and finding new things to see, even in the most familiar of subjects.