My painting is in the same exact proportions or scale as the original, but mine is 30% larger, and I have mixed feelings about that, as I'm not sure that I like looking at an oversized still life. It is only my second time to paint on a canvas this large (60"x48") and I learned a lot by doing this by one of my very favorite artists. The original was titled "Still life with a green sideboard" from 1928.
This painting's attitude is so light. It means, "Don't take life too seriously." It even means, "Don't take art too seriously." There is nothing shy about this painting, which could be said about any fauvist painting. For all of its eccentricities, it is amazing how certain things about this composition are such correct drawing, balance, and perspective. Matisse makes it "off" in just the right ways.
In an article about Matisse from the New Yorker magazine, it said the following about this painting:
Spurling knows her man so well that you readily tolerate her occasional reading of his mind: “By the seventeenth it was so hot he stayed indoors all day, drawing fruit, reading or dozing on the studio couch, feeling his feet swell and thinking about his ‘Still Life with Green Sideboard.’ ” (As anyone might: that quiet painting, from 1928, is one of the most uncannily ambiguous ever made; you cannot decide if you are looking at or into the surface of a cabinet door.)
I chose not to personalize this painting, and imitated it entirely. Had I personalized it, I would have changed the peaches to lemons, and the left pinkish area to a golden tan hue.
This was a great way to enjoy time spent in stay-at-home COVID19 days of early 2020.