Still life with aubergines 1911

Henri Matisse made ‘Still life with aubergines’ at an unknown date with oil on canvas. The painting is filled with pattern, from the blue flowers on the wall and floor, to the swirling arabesques of the screen behind the table. Matisse’s studio is clearly a big influence here, a kind of theatre of objects. You get a real sense of his studio as a place of experimentation and play. Take the aubergines themselves, lined up on the red tablecloth like actors on a stage. Look at the way he uses color: the red of the table pops against the dark background, while the green pears echo the green in the patterned screen. Matisse reminds me of Pierre Bonnard, another French painter who turned the domestic scene into something exotic and strange. Both artists invite us to see the world with fresh eyes, to find beauty in the everyday. They teach us that painting is not just about representation, it's about invention.