Henri Matisse

Five red figures hold hands in a frenzied ring against blue sky and green earth. Matisse called the composition "the highest point of the story" — the first great Modernist painting of pure color.

Matisse soaked his Issy studio in uniform Venetian red, leaving his own paintings as the only color notes on the wall. He had begun with green and blue underneath; the radical decision to cover everything in a single pigment recast what a painting could be.