Interior, July 14th, Etretat 1920

Henri Matisse made 'Interior, July 14th, Etretat' with oil on canvas, and right away you notice how he's not trying to trick you into thinking this is real, he's showing you the paint, front and center. Look at the walls, that sort of wobbly, drippy yellow. It's like he's letting the paint do its thing, embracing the messiness of the process. I love that in art, when things don't line up perfectly, that's where the magic happens. Notice the floor, streaky lavender, leading to that open door. It’s like he wants you to walk right in and join the party. There’s something really joyful about the light in his Nice interiors that anticipates the flattening of form and colour in the cut-outs he would begin to make a decade later, where everything shimmers. It reminds me of Bonnard’s interiors. They both seem to be asking, how do we make a painting that feels like a real experience, not just a picture of one?