art-Matisse.com
Henri Matisse 1869-1954
©Henri Matisse - Nude in a Wood 1906
 Nude in a Wood |
From Brooklyn Museum:
Mixing expanses of prepared but unpainted panel with patches and arabesques of orange, pink, green, mauve, and violet pigments, Matisse thoroughly integrates a seated female figure (his wife) into a landscape whose space remains largely undefined. Despite the radicality of the technique and palette, Matisse's subject matter—the coexistence of humankind and nature—harks back to the long-standing tradition of the pastoral landscape and its evocation of timeless harmony. Matisse painted this work at a transitional moment in the development of his aesthetic, as he moved from pointillism, with its regularized touches of paint, to the primacy of line and flat color.