The Yellow and Plaid Dresses 1941

Henri Matisse made 'The Yellow and Plaid Dresses’ with oil on canvas. Isn't this just great?! Look at how Matisse, in his own inimitable way, has built up the image with such a simplified approach to form and a really exuberant use of color. I can just imagine him in the act of painting. How brave he was with his brush, loaded with paint, making those intuitive marks to construct the image before him, each gesture building up the composition. What was he thinking, I wonder, when he placed that dash of red next to the green? He lays down these strokes of pure color, trusting in his natural ability, in his sense of how the painting can come together as a unified whole. He gives us an image of such joy, of figures situated in harmonious surroundings. It’s as if he wants us to embrace the pleasure of painting as an act of sheer discovery. Like Morandi, he shows how the most everyday of subjects can be rendered into something new.