Goldfish and Palette

Matisse described the abstract zone at the right of this composition as containing “a person who has a palette in his hand and who is observing.” Most likely, it is the artist himself. The surrealist poet André Breton said of the painting, “I believe Matisse’s genius is here . . . nowhere has Matisse put so much of himself as in this picture.”

Paining by Henri Matisse, Paris, quai Saint-Michel, fall 1914. Oil on canvas,