Description of the picture:
Music – Henri Matisse. 1910. Oil on canvas. Two hundred sixty x three hundred eighty nine cm
The picture looks very much like “Dance”, but it is completely devoid of its expression and catchy expressiveness, despite the fact that both canvases are created by virtually the same artistic means. Even the colors are similar – the green background of the earth, the saturated blue – of the sky, the dense red – of human figures. And this is not surprising, because both of these canvases are interconnected and were conceived as a series of three large paintings, which were to be placed on different floors of the mansion of philanthropist Schukin in Moscow. The third work remained in the form of a sketch, since the building was two-story, and Schukin himself did not have the courage to leave the paintings as they saw them (too obvious sexual signs shocked the local audience).
The painting depicts five figures inscribed in an irregularly shaped circle in their arrangement. And here the main ideas of “Dance” are duplicated. Two extreme figures play musical instruments – standing and sitting right behind her, the rest just sing along to the melody while sitting in closed poses.
Each face on the canvas seems to be a repetition of the neighboring one, they are so similar. The artist diligently achieved this, depriving his characters of recognition and individuality. This was done so that all the figures are perceived as an abstract designation of music. It is interesting that in the “Dance” all the characters are women, and only men are involved in this canvas, albeit with a carefully camouflaged gender.
In its spirit, this picture is the exact opposite of its dynamic and very expressive “brother.” Both canvases are deliberately contrasted, while they are equally expertly combined together using the same technique and the same color scheme. They are a single whole of the dualistic model of creativity."
