Fleurs et fruits, fond rayé 1942 - 1944

This line drawing of flowers and fruit, with its striped background, is by Henri Matisse. Matisse starts with the bare minimum to conjure a scene, right? Red for the stripes, yellow for the fruit, green for the leaves, a lavender blue for the vase. A child-like simplification, but, oh, so sophisticated! I can imagine him, just barely touching the paper with his pencil, figuring out how much he can leave out and still make it work. It’s an amazing skill – this distillation. He’s in conversation with all those artists who came before him, like Cezanne, and influencing those to come, like, well, almost everyone. The lines are so relaxed, yet so assured. The color and composition feels both accidental and inevitable. It is like Matisse, through the act of painting, encourages us to trust our intuition and see the world with fresh eyes.