Still Life with Aubergines

Henri Matisse, 1911 · Gallery 506 · Floor 5

The eggplants have got a lot of competition. Look at that blue and green behind them. Huge curls, leaves, flowers. Taking up most of the painting. Then over on the right, a strip of yellow with little bunches of flowers running down it. Apparently, one floral pattern wasn't enough. Down below, an orange table tips up toward us. Two green pears on a white plate. A big pink vase with handles curling out at the sides. And tucked beside it, that little pale plaster figure. An anatomy model, with the muscles showing. You almost lose him in the upholstery. Then right at the front, three dark purple eggplants. Stretched out on the orange. There they are. Now look at how loosely he's painted all this. The blue skips. The orange has gaps. Pale canvas shows through everywhere. Nothing's polished up for company. And the pattern gets as much attention as the things we're supposed to be looking at. Your eye goes off following a curl, and suddenly you've forgotten the vegetables. Even front and back start to go. The whole thing turns into one big patchwork. It ought to be a headache. Flowers, scrolls. Pattern on top of pattern. But Matisse grew up around textiles, in the weaving towns of northern France. This stuff was familiar. So stand here a second. There's a lot to look at. But somehow, no hurry. This is the guy who said he wanted his art to be like a good armchair. Something a tired person could sink into. And apparently, you can get there by putting a pattern on practically everything that'll hold still. Pleasure for the eyes. That sounds harmless enough. But "decorative" was a put-down. A way of saying a painting wasn't serious. Just wallpaper. Beautiful wallpaper. Wrapped around three eggplants. A few months later, he shows paintings like this in Paris. And what does he call them? In his words: "Decorative sketches."

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