Assiette De Fruits (Fruit Dish) 1902

Henri Matisse painted this delicious-looking ‘Assiette de Fruits’ with oil on canvas. You can imagine him shifting the still life around, adding this and that, while dabbing at the canvas. I love how the background is a kind of scumbled red-brown, a really different atmosphere. I think I'm particularly drawn to the plate – so generously loaded with fruit, kind of piled up like a little mountain. And the brushstrokes are so thick! You can practically taste the zest. Matisse must have stood back and squinted a lot, trying to get the balance right between the colors and the shapes. But he doesn't seem to want to iron everything out, you know? It’s like he wants to leave room for the painting to breathe, and for us to jump in and taste the fruit, too. I wonder what Cézanne would have thought of this. Both of them, searching for something truthful through color, form, and gesture, they pushed painting forward. I guess we all do, in our own way.