Landscape 1904

Henri Matisse made this landscape painting with oil on canvas, though we don't know exactly when. Looking at it, the quick, dab-like brushstrokes and the way the colours aren't quite blended together, it feels like a real moment, captured in paint. You can almost feel the sun on your face, right? Matisse really lets the colours do the work here. The paint's not too thick, not too thin, but there's a lot of it, layer upon layer. There's a section on the right where he paints the roof in strokes of mauve and orange, just a mosaic of colour. It's so free! Then you notice how the edges of the objects bleed, blurring the line between inside and outside, between what's real and what's felt. You see this same kind of colour exploration in the work of someone like Pierre Bonnard, who was interested in domestic interiors. Like Bonnard, Matisse creates a world that's not just seen, but lived in. It's like he's saying, hey, let's not just look at the world, let's feel it, too.