Curator, Ann Temkin: When Matisse painted Studio Under the Eaves, it was probably the worst moment in his professional life to that time. He was about 33 years old and personal and financial difficulties had forced him and his family to leave Paris and go back to his hometown in Northeast France. It was a humiliating retreat. He had his few very fervent supporters, but for the most part, the general public completely ridiculed what he was doing. And that's so hard. He rented a studio in this garrett and tried to make art, tried to continue.
You see a realistic depiction of this attic space, very grim palette. But what's really extraordinary about the painting is that there's a window and there you see this incredible bright, vivid palette, indicating the natural world outside that studio.
Writer, Claire Messud: I love this painting as an expression of an artist's interiority, that equation between the studio space and the artist themselves.
My name is Claire Messud and I am a fiction writer and I teach at Harvard University.
For me, as a writer, I feel as though I've been in this room so many times trying to, if you will, find my way into the light. This room has the long, dark aspect of struggle. We can see here that the window is open, but the overriding impression is of light at the end of a tunnel. The table itself is illuminated, and there's a patch of light on the floor. To me, at least, that suggests that the work is the way to the window.