Smoky Quartz Matisse Silver Ring

“La Dance” is a painting made by Henry Matisse in 1910, at the request of Russian businessman and art collector  Sergei Shchukin, who bequeathed the large decorative panel to the Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg, Russia. The composition of dancing figures is commonly recognized as “a key point of (Matisse’s) career and in the development of modern painting.

The painting shows five dancing figures, painted in a strong red, set against a very simplified green landscape and deep blue sky. It reflects Matisse’s incipient fascination with primitive art, and uses a classic Fauvist color palette: the intense warm colors against the cool blue-green background and the rhythmical succession of dancing nudes convey the feelings of emotional liberation and hedonism. The painting is often associated with the “Dance of the Young Girls” from Igor Stravinsky’s famous musical work “The Rite of Spring”