The Windshield, On the Road to Villacoublay

Summer 1917, and France was three years into the war. Matisse was 47, and he had tried to enlist back in 1914 and been turned away as too old. That summer his son Pierre drove him out toward the airfield at Villacoublay, southwest of Paris, which the military had taken over. Somewhere on the road Matisse decided he wanted the view exactly as he was getting it, through glass, so he had Pierre stop the car and he worked from inside it. The windows stayed shut against the dust, and passing traffic rocked the old Renault while he painted. What ended up on the canvas is the car as much as the countryside, the frame of the windshield, the hood, and the road running off between the trees.