Henri Matisse

From 1917 into the 1920s, Matisse lived in Nice in the South of France during the winter months. He focused on sunny interiors in many of his paintings of this period, here depicting the window and wall of one of the rooms facing the sea in his apartment on the Place Charles-Félix. His interest in balancing a variety of disparate shapes and colors, in combinations at once abrupt and harmonious, is in full effect in this work. The simple subject of a vase of flowers surrounded by patterned fabric and wallpaper provides an opportunity for formal experimentation. Vase of Flowers transforms an ostensibly straightforward subject into a vivid study of perspective and composition.