The Dance (Matisse)

Five nude figures join hands and wheel in a ring against bands of deep blue sky and green earth, their bodies reduced to flowing red-orange silhouettes caught at the straining peak of the dance. Matisse strips the scene to three colors and pure rhythmic movement, the linked figures pulsing with primal energy. Now in the Museum of Modern Art, the Dance is one of his supreme achievements and a manifesto of modern painting - the human figure, color, and line distilled to their barest, most exhilarating essentials, joy and movement made monumental.