A famous painting in Art History everyone should know: Dance by Matisse

In today’s article about a famous painting in Art History, we’re going to talk about one of my favorite paintings: Dance by Matisse. I particularly like this artwork because it combines two beautiful forms of expression: painting and dance.

The painting was completed by the French painter, Henri Matisse, in 1910 for an affluent Russian art collector. The rich man hired Matisse to create two large decorative panels for his mansion in Moscow and so Matisse provided him with Dance and Music, two paintings with very similar characteristics.

One of the first facts about Dance is obviously its size: since it was originally created to fit the staircase of the Russian collector, Henri Matisse created artwork of 260cm per 391cm. ‘Big’ is an understatement.

The French painter actually completed two versions of Dance; the first one in 1909 with lighter colors and fewer details, and the second one in 1910 where he chose to add more details and to create more contrast between the sky, the grass and the 5 bodies by essentially using blue, green and red.

I’ve never seen such green grass…

It is true that the colors used by the painter are not so realistic but this is because the Dance is one of the most…