Arab Coffeehouse

Painted in 1913 in distemper (a water-based medium allowing unusual matte flatness) and held in the Hermitage, 'Arab Coffeehouse' belongs to the suite of works Matisse produced during or shortly after his second Moroccan visit. The Arab coffeehouse was a site of intense sociality in Tangier — men gathered there to drink tea or coffee, talk, smoke, and listen to music, creating an atmosphere of absorbed, contemplative leisure that fascinated European visitors. Matisse approaches the scene with the formal economy of his Moroccan period, reducing the figures and their environment to a composition of flat colour zones. The choice of distemper rather than oil creates a distinctly matte, fresco-like surface that reinforces the painting's decorative and monumental character. The Hermitage's holding of this unusual distemper work within the Shchukin collection allows it to be read alongside the more conventional oil paintings from the same Moroccan visits.

The distemper medium gives the surface an unusual flatness and luminosity unlike oil paint, the colours lying on the canvas with a matte intensity. Matisse uses this quality to push the composition toward pure decoration, the figures reduced to near-geometric elements within a patterned scheme.