Still Life with a Pewter Jug and Pink Statuette 1910

Henri Matisse made Still Life with a Pewter Jug and Pink Statuette with oil on canvas. Just imagine the dance of the brush, a back-and-forth between the eye, the hand, and the subject. I wonder what it was like for Matisse, wrestling with these objects, arranging them, stepping back, squinting. Look at that tabletop, a sea of warm red, and then those cool blues in the background, making the statuette glow. It's a stage, a tiny world. That pewter jug! It’s like a little study in abstraction, facets of color catching the light, but still, undeniably, a jug. It reminds me of Cezanne, how he’d build up forms with color, bit by bit. I see him in Matisse, like a conversation across time. Painting is always such a conversation, don't you think?