石膏のトルソ

Matisse painted this in 1919, just after the First World War, when he had settled into hotel rooms in Nice and let his art relax. The severe, near-abstract pictures he had made during the war years gave way to warm, comfortable interiors like this one. On a wooden table a white plaster cast of a female torso stands beside a vase of loosely painted flowers. The plaster is a studio prop, the kind of antique cast art students drew from, and Matisse plays its smooth pale curves against the busy colour around it. He varies the brush as he goes, careful and cool over the sculpture, quicker and looser through the blossoms. Light falls across the plaster and brings out its curves against the warmer colours crowding the table.