Dance II
Artwork by Henri Matisse • 1910
🖼️ Reproduce this artwork — 📗 Book on Henri Matisse on Amazon
About this artwork - painting analysis
A vibrant symbol of early twentieth-century pictorial modernity, Dance II painted by Henri Matisse in 1910 embodies the very essence of triumphant Fauvism. Commissioned by Russian collector Sergei Shchukin to decorate the staircase of his Moscow palace, this monumental composition measuring 391 x 260 cm unfolds a primitive and joyful round dance where five nude figures, hand in hand, seem to celebrate universal communion. The circular movement sweeps the viewer's gaze into a timeless dance, while the stylized bodies stretch and twist with unprecedented gestural freedom. This work marks the culmination of Matisse's research into formal simplification and expression through pure colour.
The chromatic palette is boldly reduced to three essential hues: the brilliant vermillion red of the dancers, the deep blue of the sky, and the emerald green of the hill. This economy of means lends the painting a striking visual power, where colour no longer describes but directly expresses emotion. Matisse abandons all traditional perspective and academic modelling in favour of broad flat areas outlined by supple contours. Light comes from no identifiable source – it emanates from the colours themselves, creating a dreamlike and timeless atmosphere that transcends naturalistic representation.
Presented at the 1910 Salon d'Automne alongside its pendant The Music, Dance II provoked incomprehension and scandal among the Parisian public, accustomed to academic conventions. Shchukin himself hesitated before ultimately accepting this commission deemed too audacious. Yet Matisse drew his inspiration from archaic sources – Greek ceramics, Catalan folk dances observed in Collioure – to forge a resolutely modern plastic language.
Housed today in the Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg, this icon of Fauvism continues to fascinate through its primitive vitality and undiminished modernity. Dance II remains an essential pictorial manifesto, asserting the definitive liberation of colour and anticipating the artistic revolutions of the century to come.
If you appreciate "Dance II" and other paintings by Henri Matisse, we offer you 10% off the purchase of an art poster from our partner europosters with the promo code GRANDSPEINTRES10.
Image license: faithful photographic reproduction of a two-dimensional public domain work of art.
