I forgot to post my favourite Matisse painting... Nature Morte Aux Oranges (Still Life with Oranges) from 1912 (94 x 85cm, Oil on Canvas). What amazes me about this painting is the way Matisse uses such a flamboyant mix of primary and secondary colours, but ends in a result that is so balanced and dynamic. He really was a master of colour. This is a bit of a blurb (http://www.moodbook.com/history/modernism/henri-matisse-biography.html) about his painting philosophy which I wholeheartedly agree with!
Although intellectually sophisticated, Matisse always emphasized the importance of instinct and intuition in the production of a work of art. He argued that an artist did not have complete control over color and form; instead, colors, shapes, and lines would come to dictate to the sensitive artist how they might be employed in relation to one another. He often emphasized his joy in abandoning himself to the play of the forces of color and design, and he explained the rhythmic, but distorted, forms of many of his figures in terms of the working out of a total artistic harmony.
