Henri Matisse's Great Leap Forward

The Window, 1916
One of Matisse's favorite subjects was an interior with an open window. In this case, he has rendered the parlor in his home at Issy. The light from outside enters the room's darkened spaces, merging the floors and walls and flattening the deep space and solid forms into single planes. At the center of the composition is a thick band of white paint, a visual manifestation of the powerful dematerializing nature of light.

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