Music (Sketch)

Henri Matisse, 1907 · Gallery 506 · Floor 5

Only one of these four people is actually making music. The guy with the violin. The two in the middle are dancing, all wrapped around each other. And the man down on the right is sitting this one out. Head in his hand. Listening. Nobody's looking at anybody. Matisse actually played the violin himself. Years later, his wife asked why he practiced so much. He told her he was afraid of going blind. If he couldn't paint anymore, he could still play. So. Backup plan. Now. This is called Music (Sketch). Look at those black lines. That's charcoal. He's drawing and painting on the same canvas, and he lets you see both. Finished enough to put in a big Paris show, though. He hangs it there in 1907. Gertrude Stein and her brother Leo buy it. Which leaves a question. A sketch for what? Because the big paintings haven't even been ordered yet. That happens two years later. A rich Russian guy wants two enormous paintings for his house in Moscow. One is Music. The other is Dance. In this little one, they're still all together. The violinist. The listener. The dancers. In the big Music, the violinist stays. So does the listener. The dancers... ya know, get their own wall.

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