Blue Villa 1918

Henri Matisse conjured this strange, lumpen building with oil on canvas. I imagine him, squinting at the villa through the glare of the Mediterranean sun. He's trying to capture something airy and light, but the paint is thick, almost sculptural in places. It’s like he’s wrestling with the very materiality of the world – those greens and browns fighting for space, that blue dome daring to pop against a sky that's more grey than azure. You can almost feel the heat, the weight of the day bearing down as he daubs and scrapes, building the image up from a mess of pigment. Look how the brushstrokes around the villa seem to vibrate, each one a small, deliberate mark asserting itself on the canvas. It’s awkward, almost clumsy, but full of that raw, honest energy you see in so much of his work. It’s like he’s saying, “Here it is, the world as I see it, a little bit messy, a little bit off, but undeniably real.”