Hello, listeners. Welcome to Advanced Studio Classroom. My name is Peter, and you are joining us here December 5th, 2025, for our inspiration article for the month of December in your trusty Advanced magazine.

It is called Drawing Inspiration from Matisse, Learning How to Live a Second Life from the Famous Artist. So this is going to be a good article, I think. We’re happy to have you with us for it.

We’ll read through the article, talk about some of the ideas, but talk even more about the vocabulary in it, make sure we understand all the words, and give you a chance to practice listening to English being spoken and reading it at the same time, and help you to grow in your confidence in English.

And when I say we, of course, I do mean myself and my panelists joining me for these two days. Please welcome to the show Linda. Hello, Linda. Hi. Thank you for having me.

I have to, um, you have to forgive my voice today and probably tomorrow because I am recovering from a cold, so. Yes. Yeah, not normal.

She says a cold, but actually she just gave up smoking and went to a rock concert last weekend, so no, I’m just kidding.

Yes, we’re hopeful that, hopeful that Linda will be able to draw some inspiration perhaps from Matisse, or at least from our article today, and perhaps, uh, uh, experience some healing for her throat.

Anyway, Linda, it is always good to have you on the show. And, um, we are talking today about Matisse, Henri Matisse, one of the great, uh, French painters, uh, European painters of the, uh, 19th century, the 20th century particularly.

He is often mentioned in the same breath as Pablo Picasso, um, and, uh, talking about painting then and talking about painters, uh, Linda, uh, I know you have an art background.

Uh, I wouldn’t say, I wouldn’t ask you who is your single favorite painter, but, uh, who’s. I wouldn’t be able to say which one you like. Sure, no, I don’t think I would either, you know, um, but, uh, who, who would you say is one of your top five?

Oh, I’ll go with an art period. I really like the Impressionist period, Impressionism. Okay. And. What’s, what’s a sample painter or of Impressionism? Uh, Monet. Monet, okay, that’s Impressionism. Quintessential Impressionist painter.

I like his artwork because of the colors. He uses a lot of pastels, and they make me feel happy. I love looking at his work because it gives me joy, and the scenery is also lovely.

He paints a lot of the outdoors and especially like water lilies and ponds and, um, yeah, so it’s very idyllic. It looks very tranquil and it’s very peaceful. Also, I mean, like other Impressionist artists too, like Renoir, Mary Cassatte, she’s.

Oh, yes. An American painter, and I love the way that she captures small children.

She’s able to paint them in their natural state because kids, when they sit in a chair, they don’t sit properly, you know, they kind of slouch, and she’s just able to capture them perfectly, like, oh, that is exactly how a little kid sits or positions himself.

And there’s another artist, like from the Romanticism, um, period.

It’s a German painter called, uh, named Caspar David Friedrich, and I like his paintings because they also are of the outdoors, um, specifically the ones that he paints of someone there looking at a view.