Artwork
Music
Music is an oil painting by the Post-Impressionist artist Henri Matisse. It dates from 1910 and is held in the collection of the Hermitage Museum.
About this work
Overview
Henri Matisso’s large‑scale canvas Music, executed in oil in 1910, presents a group of five figures rendered in vivid red against a flat green‑blue background. The composition is arranged on a wall‑sized surface, the figures positioned seated and standing, some holding musical instruments while others adopt contemplative poses.
Subject & Meaning
The work depicts a small ensemble of musicians, three of whom are engaged with a violin, a flute, and a silent posture, suggesting an atmosphere of collective artistic immersion. Matisse intended the scene to convey a sense of human completeness achieved through creative activity, echoing themes explored in his contemporaneous painting Dance.
Technique & Style
Created without preparatory drawings, the canvas reveals successive alterations visible in the paint layers, allowing the viewer to trace the artist’s decision‑making process. Figures are simplified to bold, flat shapes lacking chiaroscuro or anatomical detail; the background is rendered as an unmodulated hill‑like plane, emphasizing color and form over spatial illusion.
History & Provenance
The painting was commissioned by Russian collector Sergei Shchukin, who displayed it beside Matisse’s Dance on the staircase of his Moscow residence. After the Russian Revolution, the work entered state ownership and is now held by the Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg.
Context
Music belongs to Matisse’s early Fauvist period, when he explored the expressive potential of saturated color and decorative flatness. Its pairing with Dance in Shchukin’s collection highlighted the artist’s interest in rhythm, movement, and the unifying power of art, themes prevalent in early twentieth‑century modernism.
Artist & collection
Artist
Henri Émile Benoît Matisse (French: ; 31 December 1869 – 3 November 1954) was a French visual artist, known for both his use of colour and his fluid and original draughtsmanship.
