Cap D'Antibes 1922

Henri Matisse made this painting, Cap D'Antibes, with oil paint on canvas sometime in his life, and the way he works with colour is really striking. It's like he's not just copying what he sees, but finding a new way to feel the scene through those colours. Look at the strokes on the land in the foreground, how they’re laid down thick and juicy? You can almost feel the drag of the brush across the canvas. It's like he’s wrestling with the paint, trying to pin down the light and the texture of the earth. Then, the blue of the sea and sky – a bit flatter, more dreamy. It’s all about how the paint sits on the surface, how it catches your eye, and how those colours bounce off each other. To me, this feels like some of Bonnard's landscapes, where the world is not just seen but felt through color. And in both artists, there's this sense that the painting is alive, changing as you look at it, never settling into one fixed meaning.