Femme en costume oriental 1920

Henri Matisse painted this portrait, *Femme en costume oriental,* using oil on canvas. I imagine him building up those stripes, blue and peach, maybe starting with the white ground, letting the weave of the canvas show through, kind of scrubby. There’s something so tender about the woman’s face, the way she’s caught in a moment of stillness. You can see Matisse trying to figure out what it means to represent a person. That little dab of rose on her shoulder, or that band of grey shadow around her eye, it's like he's trying to understand how light and color create form. What did he and she talk about, I wonder, in the pauses? Painters are always in conversation with each other across time. This painting reminds me a little of Manet, or even going way back to the portraits of the Renaissance. And then fast forward, and you see Matisse influencing so many artists who came after him. It's one big, messy, beautiful conversation.