H'ART Museum

‘What I am pursuing above all is expression,’ - Henri Matisse.

In this painting, La Blouse roumaine, you can see how Matisse stripped away everything unnecessary and only the feeling remained.

That’s Matisse’s pursuit of expression.

It’s not the likeliness of the woman that is the focus, but the traditional Romanian blouse. It took Matisse six months to paint this work and in each step he gradually erased the young girl to better emphasize the embroidered blouse.

When you take a moment to really look, you see that the place occupied by bodies on the canvas matters as much as the empty spaces.

Chez Matisse opens 3 October 2026 at H’ART Museum. An exhibition co-organized with
@centrepompidou.

Henri Matisse, La Blouse roumaine, 1940. ©Centre Pompidou.

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