Standing Nude near Window 1919

Henri Matisse made this painting of a nude near a window with oil on canvas; he’s working fast, trying to catch an impression, but also, you sense, just enjoying the sensuality of applying paint to a surface. Look at how the towel wraps around the nude figure, almost blending into the background – it’s a game of hide-and-seek with form, pushing and pulling our focus. What grabs me is that little patch of red-brown on the floor, grounding everything. It’s like a stage, and we’re all just players in Matisse’s color play. Matisse has a great sense of the conversational nature of painting. You see this same concern with interior space in the work of Bonnard, and later in someone like David Hockney. It all asks us: what do we really see when we look? Is it ever just what’s there? Or is it always a bit of a construction?