Place des Lices, St. Tropez 1904

Henri Matisse laid down these luscious colours in Place des Lices, St. Tropez. It looks like he mixed blues and violets with greens and yellows, making juicy, almost edible colours. I can imagine Matisse outside, squinting in the bright sunlight. The paint looks thin, like watercolour almost, so he must have been working quickly, trying to catch the light before it moved. Look at the way he's dabbed those colours on the tree. The colours are laid down in a really physical way. It’s kind of a record of how he saw and felt the world right then. Matisse would have been looking at other painters, like Cezanne, and thinking about how to create a feeling of space and depth without just copying what he saw. I see this painting as part of a big conversation that painters have been having for centuries. Each artist borrows and builds on what came before, trying to find their own way of seeing.