Nude on a Red Couch 1921

Henri Matisse painted this Nude on a Red Couch, we don't know exactly when, and with oil on canvas. It's all about the pure sensation of colour, that Fauvist approach to artmaking as a process. I see the physicality of the paint, not thick, but definitely present, especially in the red background and the patterned areas. Look at the way he’s used blue, in a kind of calligraphic squiggle, to describe the wallpaper, but also in the shadow on the nude’s body. That blue is almost neon, and creates a vibration against the red. It's a very flat image; Matisse isn't too concerned with depth or realistic modelling. There's something so immediate and confident in that brushwork. He was always looking at other artists' work; maybe he was thinking about the way Van Gogh used colour to express emotion, or maybe he was just trying to find his own way. Art is always a conversation, isn't it? It's never really finished.