Still Life with Gourds (Nature morte aux coloquintes)

Discussion

FROM THE BARNES FOUNDATION’S CATALOG

Matisse made some of his most experimental work between 1913 and 1917. In this still life from the end of that period, he engages with the cubist strategies invented by Picasso years earlier. The painting presents a collection of sharp angles and overlapping forms. Space is compressed, with plate, fruit, and tabletop tilting toward the picture plane. Square shapes repeat across the composition, so that the surface becomes a kind of grid; meanwhile, a bright gold picture frame works to disrupt that order.

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