Do you have a certain outfit you wear when you need a pick-me-up?  Or maybe there is a particular piece of music that always gets your blood pumpin’ and instantly uplifts your mood?  The work of Henri Matisse does the same for me.

From his beginnings as a Fauvist, Matisse was never afraid of exploring expression through color.

And like his friend and rival, Pablo Picasso, Matisse loved painting figures and still lifes, but it is the way he paints interiors that get me.  Maybe it is my love of interior design or the fact that I too, went through a “let’s paint pictures of fun & pretty rooms” phase.  Whatever the cause, Matisse gets the joy of painting rooms full of life and color and I dig it in a big way.

It is that brilliance of color and exuberance of design that draws me to his work.  As the artist himself said, “With color, one obtains an energy that seems to stem from witchcraft”.  

If that be the case, I am under the spell of Matisse’s color and hope to never be awakened.

Check out more of Matisse’s work at the MOMA website.