This paper argues that the hermeneutic circle implies at least four modalities, four modes of prefiguration, which concern the specific content and direction of the preunderstanding involved in our acts of interpretation. These modes of prefiguration cannot simply be reduced to metaphysical assumptions, but imply explicit or implicit assumptions concerning the creative artist, the formal object, the historical context, or the intertextual relations of the work. In an extended discussion of Matisse’s “The Joy of Life,” the paper seeks to demonstrate what these four modalities of the hermeneutic circle imply for our interpretive practice.