Apples
Henri Matisse French, 1869–1954
1916
View the original$28
Type
Size
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Materials & printing
Archival matte paper, 189 g/m² (10.3 mil), sourced from Japan, printed with multicolor water-based inkjet so every brushstroke stays crisp. Framed prints arrive ready to hang in a .75″ ayous-wood frame with an acrylite front.
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Why is it this affordable?
A flat 20% margin — just enough to keep the store running. We only sell sizes that reproduce at full quality, and we don’t mark up the large sizes the way most shops do.
About this work
When the 45-year-old Henri Matisse was rejected from military service at the outbreak of World War I, a friend encouraged him to contribute to the war effort the best way he could: by continuing to paint well. This led to a productive period of compositional and material experimentation that Matisse hoped would sustain the tradition of French painting in the face of a cultural and national threat.
Matisse painted this still-life composition twice—in the abstract work seen here and also in a more traditionally representational version. A hidden light source bathes the scene in warm tones, which are offset by a swath of green. Luminous black consumes the background, reflecting Matisse’s challenge to himself to use black as a “color of light, not darkness.”
- Artist
- Henri Matisse French, 1869–1954
- Date
- 1916
- Medium
- Oil on canvas
- Origin
- France
- Collection
- Modern Art
- Reference
- 1948.563 · Art Institute of Chicago