Nude on a Red Couch 1921

Henri Matisse, sometime in the early 20th century, with oil on canvas, made this painting of a ‘Nude on a Red Couch’. I imagine him building up those gorgeous, sensual, impastoed colours, one over another. It must have been a real tussle for Matisse, balancing the flatness of the decorative background with the roundness of the figure. You know, like, how do you stop the woman from falling off the front of the picture plane? I bet he was thinking about Ingres and all those other canonical nudes and asking himself how he could do it differently. I love the way the red of the floor rhymes with the red accents and ornamentation everywhere, and how those vertical stripes pull your eye around. Look at the black outline of the figure, thick and juicy; it really makes her pop. Matisse was always trying to find a new way to explore colour and form, in conversation with painters of the past like Ingres and paving the way for artists of the future. This nude is so alive, and so fresh; it feels like the possibilities of paint are endless.