Katherine Rothkopf

Matisse, he is a very easy entry point into understanding modern art and what made it so radical. Everything we kind of study in art 101, color, line, pattern, shape, form, he is mastering it, he is working through the basic elements and fundamentals of what we see and how we see it and he is pushing himself and he is pushing the boundaries. He is trying out these radical new innovations with color, with light. You know once he masters something, he kind of moves on to the next thing, but he always circles back. He works at the same motifs and the same issues over and over again, throughout his career. If you really look at his work, there is an underlying current of consistency, the human figure is generally his subject. And so it’s through these, by sticking to these same motifs over and over, he is able to push and revisit and go back and experiment with color and line and plains and composition and lights and he made everything look so easy. But really, he really worked. He worked very hard to make things look easy. I mean, that was his gift.