Paris

Henri Matisse

Portrait of Madame Matisse. The Green Line

1905

Oil on canvas, 40.5 × 32.5 cm. Statens Museum for Kunst (SMK), Copenhagen

A small, frontal head of Amélie Matisse, the painter's wife, split down the middle by a stripe of green. It reduces a portrait to a few bold zones of color.

• Probably painted in autumn 1905, just after the summer at Collioure.
• Look past the sitter: three flat blocks of color stand in for any setting.
• Paint goes on in broad, unblended strokes; the yellow cheek has no dark outline.
• A single green stripe does the work that shading normally does, parting a warm yellow side from a pink one. Pure hue, not light and dark, models the face.
• It belonged to the Danish collector Christian Tetzen-Lund before entering the SMK in 1936.

Image: Wikimedia Commons · PD-Art