La Villa Bleue 1918

Henri Matisse created ‘La Villa Bleue’ with oil paint, bringing a Mediterranean scene into being. I can see it’s built up of strokes, of shifting marks, some light, some dark, a constant adjustment of color and form to find something like a feeling of place. I imagine Matisse standing before the scene, squinting, judging, and thinking hard about what to include and what to leave out. Look at the brushstrokes. See how they vary, a kind of shorthand that builds up a world? The paint is thickly applied, almost like frosting. The green feels alive, it vibrates against the white of the buildings. And then those touches of blue that he adds for the domes, so gorgeous. It’s like he’s talking to us about light, about color, about what it feels like to be in a place. Painters are always in conversation with each other, and with the world, riffing on what they see and feel. And like any good conversation, there's no one way of understanding what's being said.