Blue Villa 1918

Henri Matisse made this painting of a villa using oil paint, and what strikes me most is his commitment to the act of seeing and responding. The whole painting feels alive with its quick, searching marks. Look closely, and you'll notice how the paint is applied in these thin, transparent layers, allowing the canvas to peek through. It’s not about hiding the process. It’s about revealing it. There’s this one spot, a daub of raw umber near the bottom right, which could read as foliage, or just a stroke of color. It’s ambiguous, unresolved, yet totally necessary. Matisse reminds me of Guston sometimes, the way they both embrace imperfection and ambiguity. They both understand that a painting is never really finished, just abandoned at a certain point. It’s this openness, this willingness to leave things unresolved, that makes their work so compelling.