Bathers by a River

Matisse began this in 1909 as something soft and idyllic, part of a commission for a Russian collector who wanted pastoral scenes for his Moscow staircase. It was meant to be bathers in a green Arcadia. Then he kept it in the studio and kept changing it, and the years that passed over it were the years of the First World War. By the time he finished around 1917 the pastel had drained out. The figures had turned into pale grey columns with blank oval heads, the river had become a thick black band, and the whole scene had gone still and grave. Matisse thought it one of the most important things he ever made. He worked on it, on and off, for roughly eight years.