A simplified strongly modeled portrait his wife, the painting is disturbing in its abrupt juxtapositions of road areas of clashing colors. One side of the face is yellow divided by a green band from the side, which is pink. To the left is a yellow-green complexion, suggesting youth, beauty, sex, suspicion and even envy; to the right are rough unblended pink-white stokes, radiating energy, love, constancy, perseverance age and wisdom.
Matisse used color to transform a conventional subject into a vibrating, original design. Energizing the face, the unexpected streak allows the head to compete with the assertive background.
In this painting Matisse liberated color from any obligation to describe the face of his wife in naturalistic terms, rendering her hair, face, eyes, and mouth in nonnaturalistic shades of blue, green, yellow and pink.
He believed in the power of the color as the expressive mainspring of all the elements of picture making.
Matisse’s Portrait with a Green Strip
