Woman Lying Close to a Vase of Flowers 1942

Henri Matisse made this painting of a reclining woman and a vase of flowers with oil paint. You can really see the traces of the brush moving around the canvas. I’m imagining Matisse in his studio, shuffling things around, trying different poses for the model, seeing how the light hits the flowers. It's a symphony of reds, blues, and greens, each color vibrating against the others. The surface of the canvas is alive with texture and the way he models her form with flat planes of colour is really something. Look at that confident curve of her arm, it's like a dance move. You get the sense that he is making a painting, but also having a conversation with painters like Cézanne and Renoir. Artists are always riffing off each other like this. And, like all good paintings, this one embraces ambiguity and uncertainty, and invites us to participate in the ongoing dialogue.