Woman Reading with Peaches 1923

Henri Matisse made this painting with oil paint, and his brushstrokes are pretty bold, right? Look at the colors! I love to imagine him standing there, thinking, ‘How do I make this space come alive?’. You can almost see him figuring it out, brushstroke by brushstroke. It feels so intuitive, as if he’s trusting his gut and letting the painting evolve. What I find interesting is the way the painting looks unfinished, but is actually complete. I bet he wanted to try and capture something about the joy of reading, or the feeling of a hot afternoon. I really love the way the bright yellow of the woman's dress sings against the soft blue background, and how that blue kind of seeps into the other objects on the table. Those dark eyes are something else; they have an almost dreamlike quality. It's all part of this wonderful dance between color and form, a conversation that painters have been having for centuries, each adding their own voice.