Notre Dame 1904

Matisse painted this view of Notre Dame with oil on canvas, and what strikes me is how he approaches it as a series of marks. It's like he's thinking through the process of building up an image, one dab of color at a time. The surface is alive with texture, a mosaic of small brushstrokes that dance across the canvas. The colors aren't blended so much as they're juxtaposed, creating a shimmering effect. Look at the way he uses that red streak across the bottom, it’s almost arbitrary, yet it pulls the whole composition together. You can sense the physicality of the paint, the way it sits on the surface, thick in some places and thin in others. It's interesting to think about how this painting relates to his later works. Even though this painting feels more impressionistic, you can see the seeds of his later, more simplified style in the way he flattens space and emphasizes color. It also makes me think of someone like Pierre Bonnard, who had a similar interest in capturing fleeting moments of light and color. Art is always an ongoing conversation, a dialogue between artists across time.