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TIME
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LIBRARY OF ART
The World
of
Matisse 1869-1954 by John Russell
and the Editors of Time-Life
Books
Time-Life Books, Alexandria, Virginia
SSUSAUTO PUBLIC LIBRARY
About the Author
Hnie-Life Hunks Inc.
owned
a wholly
is
subsidiary of
John Russell has been on the
TIME INCORPORATED
particular responsibilit)
editorial -tall ot the
-one I950forart,
American magazines, Mr. Russell
FOUNDER: Henry R. Lute 1898-1967
number
James
ice
/
Chairmen: Roy
Mr
has always lived,
Arthur Temple
E. Larsen,
he traveled w
research tor this
Henry Anatole Grunwald
restudying the greal collections
BOOKS
MANAGING ED1TOH:
The Consult
INC. knrn
Jerry
H.
Executive Editor: David Maness
Tom
h<i
hiej "I
On
Da\
Research
Planning Director:
Thomas
the
I
oi the
nited Stales. In his
Matisse farm!) and
nited States,
1
ing Editor Professor ol Fine ^rts
ai
hi and The
Si
New York ulpturc
<â&#x20AC;˘/
I
niversity.
Vmong
his
numerous
Donatcllo
I
I
1-1
15 for the entire pn ture.
I
is
front
I,
in
"t
Nice between the two
bright with the southern sun. the prett)
himself appears f
in
the themes that \\
orb
model reclines on a
I
sola, the
the picture, cither reflected in a mirror, intent and
or ,e
,i
hand guiding
a
pen on paper (bat
k
)
D. Manle)
John D. McSweeney
Exet utive
'
Gar! G. Jaeger,
ice Presidents
John Steven Maxwell.
I>a\ id
W
I
alsh
Peter G. Barnes (Comptroller),
ice Presidents:
Nil
in
Matisse's lush portrait ol Prim ess Elena Galitzine posed as an odalisque reveals his
Wars: the room artist
President:
/
Russia, France and the
preoccupied him during the happ) period he spenl
Sackett
L.
Littles
urman; Joan
time
members
the Slipcase
hespeetai led h
visiting
.
shows of the works
native of London, where he
Front and Hark: In these pen-and-ink draw ings Matisse combines several
Photography
tssistant Director oj
(
a great deal ol
idel)
V
End Papers
Carolyn
hiej oj Research:
Dolores A.
rate Caller)
Flahert) (acting)
Vrnold C. Holey well
Art Diret for <
s
Ernst.
hook-
Russell has served on the juries ol a
loveol rub color and bold decorative patterns. (See pages
G Mason
Senior Text Editor: Diana Hirsh
tssistant
London
in
Harrison
id L.
Director of Photography. Robert
tssistant
r.
Max
Suzuki \ detail ol
(
is
in
since 1945, with
M. Brown,
Martin Mann, John Paul Porter hi Ihn-t
Jan son
,
publication- are History oj
Editors: Dale
Managing
Assistant
\\
k
\
at
Russell has spenl
Corporate Editors: Ralph Graves.
TIME-LIFE
VI
of international art exhibitions and organized retrospective
of Modigliani, Rouaull and Balthus
R. Shepley
whs
I
hi Vems and other
found expression
interesl in travel has
on Shakespeare's country, Paris and Switzerland.
Hedley Donovan
Chairman ofthe Board: Andrew Heiskell President:
London Sunday
contributor to
the author ol hook- on Seurat, Braque,
is
Henr) Moore and Hen Nicholson. ILs Editor-in-Chief:
V
holas Benton (Public Relations), John
(Sales), Nicholas
(Europe South
J.
C. Ingleton
i
Pacific), Herbert
Vsia),
I
James
Canova 1
Mercer
Sorkm (Production
I.
Paul R. Stewart (Promotion) Personnel Director
Consumer
Beatrice
Dobie
I
Carol Flaumenhaft
\jfairs Director:
TIME-LIFE LIBRARY OF ART SERIES EDI inn: Robert Morton tssoi
mir Editor
Duma
Hirsh
Editorial Stafl lor The H orldoj Matisse
Betsj Frankel
fext Editot
Picture Editor
Kathleen Shortall
Designer: Paul Jensen Staff " riters:
John von Hart/. Paula Norworth,
Lucille Schulberg, (
I
on)
(
Martha
hiej Researcher:
)hiu
T. Goolrick
Researchers: Muriel Clarke, \drian
Condon,
Susan Jonas, Ann McLeod, Yvonne hi
Issistant
Mer\
j
\\
ong
(
ORHESI J n\iu\|s; Klis.iheth Kraerner (Bonn); Marmot Hapgood. Dorothy Bacon (London);
Susan Jonas. Lucy
n Clay
(Paris) [
DITORIA1 PRODI
*
Graham
Issistant Production Editor: Feliciano
Young
Madrid
(director).
(assistant). Michael G.
Wight
hi Coordinator: opy Staff
Anne B Landr)
Susan B.Galloway
(chief),
Barbara Hults, Florence Keith, Celia Beat tie Picture Department: Barbara S. Traffu
Aloisi,
Josephine du Brusle
Valuable assistance was also provided by: Marti Haymaker
York); Paul Hess (Paris)
;
Fraud Lessing
(\
I
leuna).
Š 1969 No
I
ime-Life Books. Inc. All right- reserved.
part of this
book ma\ be reproduced
in
means, including information storage and
any form or by any electronic or mechanical retrieval devices or systems, without prior
written permission from the publisher, except that brief passages
(associate)
(
Voulgans (New York); Maria Ymcenza
GennaroC. Esposito
Chmltts Control: Kobert L
James J. Cox
T.
Ann Natanson (Home).
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HON
Production Editor: Douglas B. Operations Manager:
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Simon
may be quoted
for
reviews. Fifth printing. Revised 1979.
Published simultaneously
in
Canada.
Library of Congress catalogue card
School and
number 69-19503.
library distribution by Silver
Burden Company, Momstown, New
Jersey.
Contents
I
"Born
to Simplify Painting"
7
Experiments with the Dot
29
III
Among the
49
IV
An Audience from
II
"'Wild Beasts"
\
V
The
Ideal Patron
VI
How
to Paint a Masterpiece
VII
VIII
A Mural for
Dr. Barnes
The Prophecy
Chronolog)
:
69
broad
Fulfilled
184
Bibliography and Credits: 185
Acknowledgments and Index: 186
93
117
1
11
163
'
""
—— "WW
I
I
niinmnni
I
//
Born to Simplify Painting"
At eight o'clock
was born lies
evening of December 31, 1869, Henri Matisse
in the
in his grandparents'
house
on the main road from Arras
to
in the
Sedan
in
town of Le Cateau. which the cheerless far north of
France. Sedan in 1870, and Arras in 1914, are grim names in the annals of war,
and although Le Cateau
itself
has quite a
bit
of style, with
an 18th Century archbishop's palace and king-sized formal gardens, the region around
it
is
turnip country: Hat. dark and wet.
has been fought over again and again since
been burned
Roman
It
is
a land that
times. Le Cateau has
ground, sacked, shelled, bombed from the
to the
air
and
stormed by assault. Coal mining and the Industrial Revolution have also
done
their worst. Altogether
it
takes character to live in this part
of France and not go under.
But character
is
what
just
Cham-
inhabitants have always had.
its
pions of the region like to point out that the armies of ancient
met their match
in a tribe called
soldiers in France, is
now Le
Cateau.
the Nervii, famous as the best foot-
and that the Nervii had their headquarters
The Spaniards who
Century bequeathed
So goes the legend
at
Mingled with the blood
produced a hardy and resolute people.
it
any
rate,
and certainly nothing could be further
from the conventional stage-Frenchman than the faced, stubborn, industrious,
W
thick-set, straight-
uncomplaining plainsmen of the north.
In business they give nothing away, but they can be relied upon. ltd
onl\ a leu
line- Matisse at
what
in
ruled the region in the late 16th
a certain fierce obstinacy.
and sinews of the Nervii,
Rome
|icrlc-(il\
drew this self-portrait
Nice when he was 70 years old.
Slriv ing
always lor purity and
simplicity in his drawings, \lahssc
made scores of
Making sure the image
in his
mind could be communicated
to Ins
pen or brush, he then
finished the
tisse's father
merchant gion.
had the
right idea
in Paris to set
He chose
the
up
little
when he gave up
as a druggist
his job as a linen
and grain merchant
town of Bohain-en-Vermandois,
in the re-
a
short
distance from Le Cateau, where his wife's family, the Gerards, had been
lines in the air
before he would lower his hand to the paper.
Ma-
placed
work quickly.
tanners and glovemakers for centuries. His business prospered, and
though he was never
by the time young Henri was within sight of
the end of his schooldays, Emile Matisse could afford to think of entering his son in one of the learned professions.
Virtually nothing Self-Portmit, 1939
rich,
LIntil
is
known
of Matisse's childhood and early youth.
he was 10. he went to the local school
in
Bohain. Thereafter he
was sent
to the lycee in Saint-Quentin, a
west, where he studied Latin and Greek.
ahout his fathers plans to enter him
in
town some way It
to the south-
he had any strong feelings
one of the professions, they
have not been recorded. He had no clear idea of what he wanted to do.
No
marked inclinations characterized
special aptitudes or strongly
sober progress from one school things,
to the next.
People told him to do
and he did them, with nothing more than
and an untocused anxiety
a persistent
he had not found his true
in particular at a
No one
conservative pace.
could foresee what
a perceptive art teacher later foresaw, that Matisse had been
simplify painting."" and of
Western Yet that
boredom
was a square-built, strong-jawed schoolboy going
bent. At 16, Matisse
nowhere
to suggest that
his
"born
to
would one day change the whole course
that he
art. is
just
what Matisse
genius of France and putting
did,
and he did
He saw
to use.
it
it
bv understanding the
that genius in
its
classical
terms: lucidity, perseverance, self-knowledge, adaptability, a special
have seen as much, and as clearly, but
feeling for perfection. Others
ways with relation and they try
do
to
al-
they know what Frenchmen have done,
to the past;
over again. Matisse, on the contrary, knew that
it
what has once been done supremely well cannot be repeated. Twice over in his it
own
lifetime he
renewed the whole
1905, at the Salon
first in
field
of painting.
dAutomne, when he showed
again on his deathbed, hall a century later,
did
people what
And he
high, controlled energy could bring to the handling of color. it
He
when he produced
did
the
huge cut-and-pasted paper compositions that are among the most beautilul
objects in
modern
art.
neither case did the greatness ot the
In
work mark the culmination of something;
both cases
in
it
was some-
thing to be taken up and used by others.
B
'ut
Matisse as a boy gave no promise of any of
not even appear interested in tin.
where he went
Century
artist
art.
had some
to school,
Quentin de
la
Although the
museum
Tour, Matisse
at Lille,
museum
at
he did
Saint-Quen-
excellent pastels by the 18th
no notice of them. Neither does he appear time of the
this. In fact,
at this stage of his life
have been aware
to
which was not
far
from
which contained a famous painting by Goya, as well
his
took
at
the
home and
as others
by major
Dutch and Flemish masters. The public buildings of Le Cateau had kind of ordered and measured dignity that may have impressed
upon him
as a desirable quality to seek in other
departments of
life.
a
itsell
Cer-
tainly the formal gardens of the archbishops palace, masterpieces of
French horticulture
in
which nature's wild ways are tamed and brought
can be read as a metaphor for the importance of lucidity and
to order,
forethought telligence
in
human
affairs
must have had
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; whoever baptized them Le Jardin de lTn-
this in
mind. Just as conceivably, Matisse may
have seen them as the triumph of patience, planning and coordination over forces usually allowed to run based on the artists later activities:
no proof for any of In the
He went
fall
riot. it
But
alf ol this
would seem
is
conjecture,
logical, but there
is
it.
of 1887. Emile Matisse sent his son to Paris to study law.
willingly, read his law books, attended his lectures
and
a year
later
passed his examinations with exemplary grades.
siek,
nobody knew
If
he was home-
He spoke
Paris astounded him, he never said.
it; if
only of occupying his spare time with "mediocre distractions/' Yet a great thing for Paris,
and for
a
any young man
young
artist
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; even
a latent
one
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; Paris
his canvases with scientifically juxtaposed dots of color,
pleted his poignant
comment on
Parade (page
Vincent van Gogh had arrived
is
in
1888 was a
in
great citv in a great year in a great century. Georges Seurat,
II).
it
spend his 19th year as a student
to
composing
had just com-
the pleasures of big-citv night
The
life.
where the
at Aries,
revelation of southern light and color were to inspire the sun-drenched
paintings that have
become everyone's
had returned from a
whole notion of an
art
bounded by the European
were striving to
had created for
find a
itself
bv
way out of the impasse
And working
that Impressionism
insistence on recording only the fleeting
its
look of a scene at one particular
In short,
past.
Cezanne and Pierre-Auguste Ren-
side by side, at Aix-en-Provence, Paul oir
moment.
the privacy of a handful of studios, the art of the 20th
in
Century was being hammered out. But almost nothing. Art of that kind
in
of this the general public
knew
those days was not a topic of public
and there were no newsmen or television cameras
interest,
Gauguin
idea of the south. Paul
the island ol Martinique to question the
visit to
over
to peer
To most
people, painting meant the historical
set-pieces, fraudulent exoticisms
and banal moralities, which were be-
the painter's shoulder.
ing manufactured by artists
who
Paris.
Having formally completed
and took It
whose names are now forgotten. Matisse,
cared for neither good painting nor bad, saw no reason to linger in his law studies, he
was dozy, unresponsible work. A lawyer's clerk
did what a
Xerox machine does now. and often
to the
copied out reams of information that went into sulted. Since bulk rather than content to
went back north
a job as a clerk in a lawyer's office in Saint-Quentin.
was the
files,
day
in Matisse's
same purpose: he never to be con-
criterion, Matisse took
padding his foolscap pages with copies of the fables of La Fontaine.
Henri Matisse was twent) when he
photograph with
his
mother
files,
and
Matisse's employer did not complain. At 20, Matisse was embarked
in a
small way on
a professional career, and his future, though not brilliant,
could have trundled on
had not.
in 1890. got appendicitis.
the subsequent
operation, his
fashion for another 50 years
in this
During
mother
his long
tried to
if
he
convalescence from
amuse him with the gift handbook on
of a box of paints, a set of brushes and a do-it-yourself painting.
The
effect
was prodigious. The dullness
dropped away, and Matisse "free, quiet tic,
and
alone.""
felt
for the
first
everyday
Never was there a man who was
life
own words,
less of a
mys-
but a mystic could hardly have spoken more fervently or in more
exalted terms of the change that had
come over
had been called," Matisse wrote 60 years lead
of
time, in his
my
life. It
led me.""
his
and systematic existence.
in
life.
"It
"Henceforth
These were powerful words
customarily measured and moderate rational
later.
for a
was as I
if I
did not
man who was
speech and in general pursued a
s
in
her
subconscious
influences his uork. Matisse was in a post
waiting lor a phone
office in Picard)
what ami
I
I
I
made
drev\
a
laee. u ilh all
up
to recognize
it- -ulillel ies.
a
pen drawing of a
without thinking
was doing, m\ pen working on
was surprised
"To
call.
pa-- the tune." he recalled, "I picked
woman's head.
He
Some
charming, though rather incidental rule
telegraph form ami
was secure.
sat for this
1889.
years later, \nria Gerard Matisse played a
son's discovery that an artist
Clients were delighted with the imposing thickness of their
in
ol
its
own,
m\ mother
-
The immediate product
of this experience was a collection of copies
of the trumpery chromo-lithographs that serve as models for novice
The long-term
painters.
was Matisse's decision
result
an
to study art,
undertaking that meant a long and elaborate education
at a
time when
both the nature and function of painting were in the process of being defined.
There was
powerful
still
an
art
— so much so that
a living outside
But
it.
it
Establishment, and
it
was
still
immensely
was hardly possible for a painter
it
to
make
was also clear that the days of the Establish-
ment were numbered. New kinds of
were coming into being that
art
could not be reconciled with the frockcoats and potted palms of the ditional Salon. In fact, a
was founded
Arts,
re-
tra-
new Salon, the Societe Nationale des Beauxwork of these new artists the very year
to exhibit the
of Matisse's "conversion."
H
istory
things
is
not always a very good guide to the way people
when they happened. Nothing today could seem more
felt
about
expressive
of health and well-being than such great Impressionist paintings as
Manet's Bar
at the Folies-Bergere or
Party or Monet's Terrace of Sainte-
Renoir's Luncheon of the Boating idresse.
Simply
to
look
at
these
how agreeable life must have been at that when they were first exhibited, most people regarded
paintings makes one think time. But, in fact,
them as immoral daubs
— flashy, inept and
practically incomprehensible
while those most qualified to judge regarded them, repudiation of everything that mattered.
as a
at
best,
art
was a mat-
and nature was manipulated according
ter ot trade secrets,
The
To academicians
to fixed laws.
Impressionists, on the contrary, staked everything on the actual
and previouslj unrecorded look
ot things.
As the name suggests, they
saw the world in terms of instantaneous impressions that were to be set
down Just
one year after he had
paintbrush, Matisse
two classmates
firsl
show
picked up a
n hen-
— was accepted
at
Hanked by
the
prestigious ^cademie Julian. But the
Vcademie's
\\ illiam
stressed painting disillusioned,
In theory this was an ideal antidote to the formulas of the academy,
but in practice
it
right to express
left
something
to be desired.
The
painter abrogated his
an indi\ idual opinion. He was required
to be absolutely
passive toward nature, to become, as Cezanne said ol Monet, "only an
led b) the award-winning
staff,
painter Adolphe
as truthfully as possible.
left
in
Bouguereau.
accepted modes; Matisse,
after a !<» weeks.
eye." Other painters, in varying degree, also became dissatisfied with
pure Impressionism. B\ the
upon finding
dom
of expression.
"something
mind an
late
1880s the) were
a kind of painting that
solid
art of
When
revolt,
in
lull
to
them
like the art of the
intellectual substance.
bent
their free-
Cezanne spoke of turning Impressionism
and durable,
more
would restore
into
museums." he had
He wanted
in
the painter to be
able to dictate to nature instead of sitting quietly by, while nature dictated to him.
The pioneers
ot this
new movement were Ceorges
Seurat, Paul Gau-
guin and Cezanne himself. Cezanne was preoccupied with space. Unlike the Impressionists, for pable,
space was something vaporous and impal-
Cezanne regarded space
This helps explain
home
whom
in
why he
as
something
to be cut into, like marble.
loved to paint the stone quarries near his
Provence: method and subject were one. But regardless of sub-
ject, in all his
paintings he went
all
out for firmness and hardness and
calculation. Seurat, too, reintroduced calculation into painting. In fact,
he went
10
much
farther than Cezanne, for he believed in the scientific
analysis of color as well as of space, and he used mathematical formulas to
quite sure that the final effect of his composition was what he
make
intended
to be.
it
With Gauguin, the revolt from pure Impressionism took an entirely Romantic biographers like to stress the away-fromhow he gave up his comfortable income, it-all aspects of Gauguin's life
:
il>\<^
different direction.
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
home and
his comfortable
his
exemplary wife and children
seeming debauchery
live a life of
the South Seas. In fact, Gauguin
in
was a profoundly serious man who wanted
He took what seemed
to the art of his time. in that direction:
go off and
to
to bring a
new
set of values
him the only
to
logical step
he forsook a society that could be content with de-
based naturalistic painting.
"Man demeans
himself
make use
""He should
when he
Gauguin once
adores nature,
said.
of her." In pursuit of this goal, he broke with the
Old Masters and identified himself with quite other sources of energy
and enlightenment. He turned
Peruvian
to
idols, to
ture, to Japanese prints, to ancient Egyptian
Romanesque
and Assyrian
sculp-
art. "I
have
he said on his deathbed, "to vindicate the right to dare any-
tried, "
What who
thing.
have done myself
I
painter
is
only relatively good, but every
from the new-found freedom of
benefits
something." He was right: 20th Century uralism,
its
art,
with
its
owe me
art will
contempt for
frequent appeals to primeval instincts and
nat-
belief in the
its
t
emotional force of color,
is
This was how matters stood
come
But
a painter.
enough of a lawyer
He was aware
gated.
in
1890 when Henri Matisse
Matisse knew that art was on
if
to
know
that
<
deeply indebted to Gauguin.
trial,
out to be-
he was also
that every side of a case should be investi-
academic
good work, and he decided
set
had in the past produced
art training
to give
it
a try.
Consequently he began
his
new career by enrolling in a drawing class in Saint-Quentin. The class met every morning from 6:30 to 7:30 and was intended primarily lor young people with regular jobs who wanted to learn to be embroidery and textile designers. The hours were grim, especially in winter, but Matisse was a man of indomitable will. He attended class religiousl) and began
to
draw everywhere,
all
the time.
hours, and be to paint, in
his good-
d be grateful,
""I
natured employer said, "if you could draw a
less
little
more accurate when you cop) m\
during working
He
drafts."
also began
an awkward but workmanlike style.
rhese two drawings, done b) Matisse
hi IIhis
part-time activity did not satisfv
pulsive in
Beyond
itself,
that,
for
it
seemed
in
painter.
veiled as a
many
he had decided to devote
The boy who had been
man
ol
all
in
1892 he announced
his time to
listless
like a bull at a gate.
Now
school philosoph)
:
excellence
nature. sit
1
I
I
just
my
had to put
my
People had always been
heard those words as
my
total conviction,
if
for the
at
life.
that
prompted Matisse
first
f
iu/>)
as
or
having
untitle
<
. i
â&#x20AC;˘
|
>
\
to lea\e
I
lie
-eliool
dictum, "Copiez betement
nature
-lii|>i<ll\
There
and about
to
making
to
through 20 classes on draw ing plaster casts
head down and
me
m
a cast
was requirements such
1
elemental determination. "I knew." Matisse said
the impossibility of turning back.
Hurry! Hurry!'
becoming a
and docile was suddenly un-
years later, "that this was the vital turning point in
it
re-
rebel against the
was something almost terrifying about
go at
was
relation to the distance he
had to go and the problems he had to solve. Earl) to his father that
It
new-found vocation.
IM'M
in
the Vcademie Julian, reflect prevailing art -
unimaginative copies, from
was almost meaningless
it
Matisse for long.
a betrayal of his
al
"Hurry!
time. 6iÂťwyed
11
(doj^cdk
and la ).
along as
I
was by
His father's
power quite
a
my
alien to
as a 'normal"
life
stage in Matisse's career this prediction very nearly theless.
Emile Matisse decided
even gave him in Paris, this
that he
mous
a
man."
reaction was, "You'll die of hunger!", and at one
first
the end to
in
let
came
true. Never-
and
his son try his luck,
modest allowance. In October 1892, Matisse was back
time as an art student. His father was encouraged to hear
was taking lessons from Adolphe Bouguereau, then the most
painter in France, but Matisse soon had other ideas about his
now
teacher. Bouguereau's paintings
fa-
new
look both lascivious and picayune,
with their agglomerations of female nudes and their soapy, standardized
methods of presentation. Matisse was not impressed by them. He was even
less
impressed by Bouguereau's lordly way of copying himself over
and over again before an admiring audience. Matisse did not want a copyist:
he wanted
to get to
do so was
that the only place to official,
the bottom of
government-supported
I
he Ecole des Beaux-
to be
Before long he realized
art.
the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, France's
at
art school.
\rts of the 1890s
nowadays regarded
is
as a cit-
adel of prejudice, garrisoned by boors and drudges, and patrolled at in-
frequent intervals by bemcdaled "masters less
impressive name. Nevertheless,
means of anv individual student: lection o| copies
young firsl
and
perhaps most
and
casts, a
lor
chance
posterity has a far
offered resource> far
it
studios, a
important of
whom
to
huge
compete
for
worthwhile
col-
prizes,
company of other gifted insufficiently qualified when he the
all
people. Matisse was rejected as
applied for admission. Subsequently he took to sketching, along
with other aspiring art
i-t -.
in
the school
s
glass-roofed courtyard, which
contained copies of Europe's great art treasures
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; paintings by the
classes took a lofty
joined the Beaux-Arts faculty. At
first
to their
up
at
66, had just
sight of Matisse's drawings,
reau issued a fateful invitation. "Join I'll fix it
way
and sardonic attitude toward the would-be students.
But there was one exception. Gustave Moreau. who.
"and
Ital-
and Greek and Roman sculpture. Most
ian masters, casts of Renaissance
of the '"master-"" w ho passed through the courtyard on the
said,
beyond the famous
library, a
my
class
if
Mo-
you want to." he
later with the administration."
Today, after more than half a century of exposure to theories of psyIn 1892 \Iah--c began Ins studies
under
dapper Gustavo Moreau. The above lithograph of Moreau, by Matisse's classmate Georges
Rouault, was most
likel) inspired
jaunty photograph
at top.
li\
the
Moreau's
choanalysis, anyone would recognize Gustave of the sublimated homosexual.
Rue de
la
Rochefoucauld that
ting himself off
above mere technical competence, strongl)
among
young Matisse.
shy, delicate,
is
now
the
life in
the products of his
own
lived almost entirely
luxuriant imagination. left
the house on the
Musee Gustave Moreau. Gut-
from the outside world, Moreau
stantly and, at his death in 1898.
as the very type
mother-bound bachelor,
with a private income, he led an almost hermetic
philosophy, which stressed personal vision
influenced the
A
Moreau
He worked
the French nation 609
oils,
con-
282
watercolors and over 7,000 drawings.
Moreau
in his art
was indifferent
to the
modern world, and chose
in-
stead to portray a world of pure fantasy. His paintings are peopled with figures
from antiquity
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; Hercules,
Salome, Orestes, Jupiter
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
in
the
guise of elegant apparitions, indeterminate in sex and equivocal in their
12
states of undress. Poets
and "decadent" novelists
took particular delight
in
like J.K.
Huysmans
Moreau's sumptuous imaginings. Others,
humbug about
however, thought there was something the normal world. "Moreau,"
mit
who knows
a her-
""is
the railroad schedules."
1892 Moreau turned to teaching. The tender attention he lavished
In
on
all
his rejection of
Edgar Degas,
said his old friend
his students
may
well have been an outlet for the homosexuality he
dared not express. But his classes
mous
the Beaux-Arts quickly became
at
enthusiasm he aroused
for the
Moreau was the
talents he uncovered.
fa-
students and the variety of
in his
first
modern
of the great
art
teachers; he believed that the teacher's task was to set the student free
Within
to be himself.
a brief six years, his
major painters, Rouault and Matisse.
who had much
classroom produced two
also
It
produced four painters
do with the Fauve color revolution of 1905
to
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; Albert
Marquet, Henri Manguin, Charles Camoin and the Belgian painter Henri
From
Evenepoel.
his classes, too,
came Simon Bussy, whose
Andre Gide and Paul Valery are the
of
best likenesses ever
portraits
produced of
these two great French writers. At a time
when every other teacher on
the Beaux-Arts faculty detested his ideas,
Moreau was the
school's one
civilizing influence.
Matisse never torgot his vears with Moreau. Years later his eyes
would mist over
at
the mention of his name, and he could draw an exact
memory
plan of the classroom from ture was
where the
like,
students meant er,
was a
up
kept
much
light
to him.
correspondence. Tiny
of a well-slocked
Rouault, a painter of
much greater gifts
whom
(he bought
he his
all
and neatly ordered mind. Georges than Bussy, was also important
Although he and Matisse were ne\er cut out for close friend-
ship, they always respected
one another. Rouault was deeph religious
and profoundly concerned with the woes and iniquities
Even
a major paint-
London), outspoken by nature,
in
Bussy was possessed
in stature
fellow
his
one of the few people with
clothes in a British schoolboys' shop
to Matisse.
where, what the furni-
sat
and so on. Three of
Simon Bussy. although not
loyal friend to Matisse,
a lifelong
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; who
fell,
in his
student days he had a
fixity of
purpose and
the world.
ol
a
grandeur of
imagination that set him apart from his fellows. Bouault saw painting not as a pastime, but as a a public
much
I
he third
well
in
need
member
ol
of
way of embracing
lib*
and reinterpreting
lor
it
admonition.
Moreaus
was Albert Marquet. He was
class
whom
six vears
ready had eight years of art training;
at
Matisse came to know
Matisse's junior, but had
al-
15 he had been admitted to the
Eeole des Arts Decoratifs. Marquet had a slight lv deformed leg and wore thick,
heavv-rimmed spectacles, which
and gave him a dreadful time to him,
were
lense he had
in school.
at best indifferent
become
solitarv
and
at
set
him
apart
from other boys
Other human beings,
it
seemed
worst actively hostile. In self-de-
and withdrawn. As
a
boy he had wandered
alone for weeks on end along the Bordeaux waterfront, sketching ev-
erything that caught his fancy. All his of what the French call
la
life
he was a marvelous reporter
chose rue. the thing seen, the slice of
Matisse was then, as he was
all
his life, a bear for work.
life.
There was
never anything about him of the easygoing bohemian. # But after he met
Marquet, the two of them used
to
go out together in the evenings, along
13
the streets of Paris, covering sheet after sheet of paper with
little
thumbnail sketches. To Matisse, whose notion of drawing was related exclusively to the sober, concentrated
work of the schoolroom, these
sketching excursions to the cafes, bars and music halls were invaluable.
money
Neither student had any
to spare,
and they made
a
cup of coffee
go a very long way as they sat watching the city's night world, then at its
most
much
and while
vivid,
of
down on paper
as
as they could.
it
When
eddied round them, put
it
Matisse
left his
bachelor room on the Rue des Ecoles,
it
was
ei-
ther to go to school or to the Louvre or on one of these sketching
promenades with Marquet. He had no spare time, sense, and
his efforts
all
in the
conventional
were directed towards the two days of the
week, Wednesday and Saturday,
when Moreau
corrected his students'
work. Not that Moreau was a tyrant: far from
it.
There was no non-
sense about Authority with a capital A, or about Standing with a capital
S when he came into the classroom, and his presence was certainly not imposing.
One
acquaintance, seeing him on the street, observed that he
looked like "an obscure country gentleman
who had come up
to Paris
show." Nevertheless, when he appeared on correction
for the horse
day, wearing his skullcap and dirty white smock, his students were in
no doubt about Moreau's
ability to
judge what was best for each and
every one of them.
On some
students, Moreau's teaching was wasted. Fewer than one in
10 had any real talent. Those whose
formed
compact group
a
less likely to disturb
at
rest
were lazy or boisterous or ungifted,
who were
"in art" for what they could get
But every one of them, genius or dullard, idler or workhorse,
it.
listened carefully faculty,
in history
the back of the room, where the others were
them. The
or were immature careerists
out of
names have gone down
when Moreau
members
spoke. Unlike other
whose teaching was based on
of the
a fixed hierarchy of values in
which their own work stood somewhere near the
top,
Moreau never
mentioned his own paintings. And he was constantly shifting ground.
He
his
took his students to the Louvre as often as possible, and
once there kept their imaginations on the move. One day he would speak to them of the glowing colors of the masters of the Italian Renaissance, in
whose work he knew
well
from a
trip
he had taken to Italy
1857 with Edgar Degas. The next day he would suddenly exclaim,
"You know little
when I'd give everything possess for one Rembrandt's mud." He scandalized other faculty mem-
there are times
piece of
I
bers by telling his pupils to get out in the street and study real
by encouraging them galleries.
told
go and look
at
the work of
"Don't miss that Toulouse-Lautrec
them one
M
to
latisse
in the
Rue
and
in the
Laffitte,"
he
day. "It might have been painted in absinthe."
was formed by Moreau. One
marks can be
life,
new painters
set, like
after
another of Moreau's
re-
mottoes, beneath the great paintings of Matisse's
Moreau would say, "is simply an opportunity for Or again: "Think your color! Know how to imagine it!" At a time when most painters were still striving to portray nature objectively, Moreau was suggesting that this was a waste of maturity. "Nature,"
the artist to express himself."
14
.
time.
It
was useless, he
pared with nature's.
hope for "effects of light" that com-
said, to
Much
better to imagine light and imagine color
with such intensity that the observer would forget nature and see only the artist's vision of the world. In the words of Rouault,
Moreau
be-
lieved that the exceptional student could be taught to "discipline his will
without reference to preconceived method, and to remain true to
his inner vision."
Matisse was one of those exceptional students, but he had come late to painting.
He was
not yet ready to think of putting aside preconceived
method. He wanted
from
learn
but
it
inside:
to learn
from the Old Masters, and he wanted
by copying their work. Copying can be
a drudgery,
can also be an adventure in understanding. Matisse chose his
models with care. Although he loved the Goya painting of two in Lille, for instance,
about,
I
imitate
most
to
think its
I
can do
and once said of it
too!", he
reckless mastery.
The
it,
knew
that
to set
is
no beginner could hope
to
pictures he chose to copy were, for the
part, painstaking reconstructions of
had tried
women
"If that's what painting
down what they saw
Dutch and Flemish masters were
everydav
life
by painters
as accurately as possible.
his favorites.
Much
later
who The
he spoke of
"the scale of silvers and grays, so dear to the Dutch masters, from
Gustave Moreau's class
oi
1897 puses on the
steps of the Ecole des Beaux-Arts lor a
serious portrait (one student
at
upper
mockleft
is
solicitousl) helping the statue blow itsnose)
Rouault stands, bewhiskered and bareheaded,
which
my
I
learned to
make
light sing out in
values precisely in tune."
subdued harmonies and
to get
in tin-
center
Moreau's
last
the pic lure. This class was
ol ;
he died the follow
15
ins:
\ear.
Matisse
26 could scarcely have been taken for either
at
He seemed
prodigy or a rebel in the making.
a youthful
a painter primarily inter-
ested in playing off one gray against another. His one painting of any
consequence during
this period bears this out. It
him and
Classroom, a scene very tamiliar to ing.
human
offered the challenge of the
It
the dramatic
fall
a
Gustave Moreaus
is
good subject for a paint-
body, dressed and undressed,
of light from high side-windows, the complex pattern-
and stools and canvases, and the presence of an occasional
ing of easels
antique cast. Matisse did very well with
these things, putting them
all
And he maneu-
together in an easy but unconventional relationship.
vered with great flat
between the
skill
flesh color of the
models body, the
white of a plaster cast behind her, the whites and tans of the canvas-
es racked along the wall, the gray of the studio floor
and the sharp white
of the students" collars. But of Matisse the revolutionary colorist there
was, as yet, no trace.
In 1895, Matisse moved downhill from the Rue des Ecoles St. -Michel, a
downstream
house that stood on the to the
bank of the Seine with a view
left
Louvre and upstream
Quai
to 19
Notre Dame. His room was
to
high up, near the roof, and his neighbor across the landing was another
young
Wery. Wery was no genius, but he was
painter, Emile
with things and
made
his business to be
it
novel long before they were
much
from their encounter. But
He had
his
for the
own
Pont-Aven
his friends. In fact,
Wery were much good came
moment
Matisse did not want to be
self-imposed program, and
cerned with the art of the past. In the village of
in Brittany,
touch
publicized. Matisse and
each aware of what the other offered, and eventually
distracted.
in
aware of the new and the
summer
it
was
still
con-
of 1895 he went to the
once a favorite spot of Gauguin and
he even put up
at
the Pension Gloanec, Gauguin's
old headquarters. But instead of being influenced by this, he went ahead patiently
and quietly
as
though Gauguin had never existed, working on
the paintings he meant to submit to the Salon of the Societe Nationale
des Beaux-Arts for exhibit the following spring.
Five of these paintings were accepted by the Salon. This was the public showing of his work, and the pictures
amounted
first
to a catalogue
of Matisse's current enthusiasms. In addition to Gustave VIoreaus Class-
room, there were two 11
still lifes,
oman Reading. Each
a
Breton landscape and a portrait study,
signed, as
is
it
ters are in the careful plotting of light still-life
painter Chardin
Gamille Corot
is
in the
Last but not least,
//
in the
is
were, by proxy.
on jugs and
The Dutch mas-
glasses, the
French
tender fullness of fruits and flowers,
tranced and golden light of the Breton landscape.
oman Reading
is
in
essence an act of homage to
Vermeer's Lace-Maker, which Matisse had seen many times
in
the
Louvre.
Two
of the paintings.
//
oman Reading and
Still Life
with Black Knife,
were sold almost immediately, which must have reassured Matisse's the
//
the presidential hunting lodge and
summer
In addition, the eminent art critic Roger
16
fa-
oman Reading was even purchased by Felix Faure, president of French republic, and hung in his private apartment at Rambouillet,
ther.
residence just outside Paris.
Marx
liked Matisse's entries
well
enough
become one of
to
keen supporters, and Puvis de Cha-
his
vannes, then one of the most famous painters in Europe, nominated Matisse for permanent membership in the Salon with
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; an honor that carried He could
the right to bypass the entrance jury at future Salons.
it
hardly, in short, have had a greater success, and he could have had a
comfortable
member hung
life
almost for the asking. Roger Marx, for instance, was a
of the committee that purchased copies of Old Masters to be
over France.
in public buildings all
He was happy
to
Matisse for this work, through which Matisse earned as francs per copy ner.
He could
like
//
But
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
at a
also
time
when
a single franc
much
as 1,200
a passable din-
have found plenty of customers for more paintings
o/nan Reading and
Still
Life with Black knife.
was not enough, and Matisse knew
it
bought
recommend
it.
summer
In the
of 1896,
almost within days of the Salon's closing, he set out again for Brittany, this time with
Wery
at
Through Wery he came
his side.
Australian Impressionist John Russell, then living
to
know
at Belle-Ile
the
on the
Breton coast. Russell was a friend of Monet and Van Gogh, and he often talked to Matisse about them, telling
own work
him what they were
how they about it. how
like,
how others felt own unblemished independence; Ruseven gave Matisse two Van Gogh drawings. Matisse was too
persisted in their
they valued above sell
all
regardless of
else their
between the
sensitive an artist not to be struck by the difference
titude of
Monet and Van Gogh and the
attitude of the Establishment.
There was, however, no immediate change did experiment with pure color in
in his
own own
sensations,
young woman
in local
costume bending over
with bottles, dishes and a loaf of bread.
It
a table laden
was. in effect, a Dutch inte-
transposed into the sharp marine light of Brittany.
B
heton Serving Girl was prepared especially for the Salon
when people
still
in
time
at a
expected Salon pictures to be carefully worked over,
with every inch of canvas
then
Ma-
major painting that summer was Breton Serving Girl (page 24), a
picture of a
rior
Although he
art.
one or two small seascapes, laying the
color directly onto the canvas in response to his tisse's
at-
filled
and
a lot going
on
inside.
People lived
crowded, complicated interiors. The average bourgeois home
was packed with
silks
and brocades and
tapestries, with
elaboratelv
shaded lamps and tables groaning with knickknacks; there was a
real
horror of emptiness. Not surprisingly, the ideal Salon picture contained a knight in armor, a group of cardinals,
some
tropical vegetation,
some
counterfeit stained glass, a medieval feast with every dish and goblet
shown in meticulous detail, a distant view of Constantinople through a window in the background, and in the foreground, three or four naked women, dancing. Matisse did not go along with this sort of thing wholeheartedly, but
he did
feel
bound
to offer a well-furnished
picture. Interior with
Hat, painted in the same year as Breton Serving Girl, Davidsz. de
is
Top
proof of this. Jan
Heem, the 17th Century Dutch master whose work Matisse
often copied, would have admired the sheer variety of objects that Matisse
managed
to get into this picture.
Along with the hat of the
title,
it
contains a desk top heaped with books and papers, porcelain vases of
17
various textures, a lamp, a glass bottle and tumbler, and a wall
and touchable, cied.
It is
as
if
in the fall of 1896,
suggested to him that
it
Gustave Moreau took Matisse aside and
was high time he risked himself on a
There were several reasons for
tant painting.
one of the acknowledged leaders to
real
the spectator could reach out and take what he fan-
a patient, laborious piece of work.
Sometime
him
filled
somehow
with paintings and picture frames. All of the objects are
prove himself
generation
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; and
Moreau's
in
Moreau was then
To
impor-
now
Matisse was by
this.
and Moreau wanted
class,
19th Centurv terms.
in
big,
painters of Moreau's
in his seventies
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; the decisive
test
of a painter's ability was the large painting on a large subject. Canvases
such as Gericault's Raft of the " Medusa." Delacroix' Death of Sardanapalus or Courbet's The Painter's Studio were, in
manhood
for their creators
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; and
effect,
in pre-Impressionist
had been taken for granted. Even when
failed, as
it
it
ordeals of
days the ordeal
did in Ingres* Apo-
Homer or Corot's Homer and the Shepherds, it had attempted. The painter owed it to his public, and to himself.
to
be
upon Matisse
in-
theosis of
Moreau's second reason
for urging this big picture
volved the question ol the Prix de Rome. This prize, which
was open years in
to all art
Rome
at
still
exists,
students and entitled the winner to study for several the expense of the French government. Lodged, fed
and generally looked
after in the Villa Medici,
one of the world's great
houses, winners of the prize had the run of what was then regarded as the supreme repository of Western art. Over and above these material benefits, the Prix
standing start
gifts.
Rome marked
de
To have won
over his contemporaries, and
ademic or government post,
man for life as a person of outRome gave a young painter a head
a
a Prix de if
he applied for an ac-
in later life
"former
Rome
prizewinner" was the
strongest of recommendations. In any case, few
young
dared
artists
think of their future in terms that ignored the existence of this
official
road to success.
M.
loreau himself did not especially approve of the Prix de
competition, and Matisse in later the subject. for
it.
It's
"What makes
it
so pernicious," he said, "is the preparation
For one student like Rouault, there
who
and remained ineffectual Rouault's example
lost
who had
a
good head on
his shoulders,
the chance of becoming normal citizens
artists for the rest of their lives!"
may have
mammoth
terred, he had
subject of his
Biblical canvases,
gone on
own
Neverthe-
inspired Matisse to try a man-sized
painting of his own. Rouault had tried twice for the Prix de ing out
Rome
could scarcely contain himself on
simply an apparatus for sending the student out of his mind.
how many were less,
life
and both times he had
to produce, in 1897, a third
Rome, failed.
turn-
Unde-
major painting on a
invention, Le Chantier (page 23 ).
Le Chantier. one of the great European paintings,
is
set in that in-
determinate industrial region, neither city nor suburbs, which French-
men
call la zone.
distance are in
It
full
is
barely dawn, but already the factories in the
output, and groups of people in twos and threes
are passing across the desolate scene on the
In the foreground two
18
men
way
to industrial serfdom.
are fighting fiercely, seemingly to the death,
but no one notices and no one cares: the Industrial Revolution has
blackened men's hearts as
it
The whole
has blackened the landscape.
Rouault's childhood and youth in the working-class quarter of Paris in this painting:
he saw torical
it,
he meant
likened
its
depth and breadth of vision to Shakespeare's
"In this painting." he said
plays.
is
an indictment of society. Moreau, when
as
it
of
Rouault,
to
his-
"you
are
Shakespeare's countryman."
M
was impressed by the quality of the
latisse
into this painting, but he
knew
themes. His art was then, as cial
it
that he himself
was
Rouault had put
effort
was not meant for such without any so-
to remain, entirely
or political or religious commitment. Matisse did not aspire to
change society, or even talk politics,
and he
olutionary, his art of family
life,
women
tiful
to leave a portrait of
lived
it.
No one
ever heard him
and died an unbeliever. Even
was traditional
in subject matter:
at its
most
rev-
he painted pictures
of tables laden with good things to eat and drink, of beautaking their ease in
surroundings.
beautiful
No
one,
looking at a Matisse exhibition, would guess that he lived during some of the most terrible years of radically
human
history and that the world changed
and irreversibly during the span of
are, in a sense, portraits of
his liletime. His paintings
an earthly paradise.
Consequently, when Moreau challenged him to produce a big picture for the
1897 Salon, Matisse turned to one of the great recurrent themes
of French painting: The Dinner Table. Matisse's table
that of a well-to-
is
do household with a faithful maidservant, familiar to readers of French literature
from Moliere
to Proust.
The maid
flowers; the silver has been cleaned until
it
giving a
is
wine
abundance.
A
last
touch to the
sparkles; the fruit, hand-
piled high in the center of the table; there
picked, in
is
is
red and white
sense of order and well-being and fastidious op-
ulence pervades the whole scene.
The Dinner Table (pages 24-25) conveys, among other things, the vast
improvement
still lifes
in Matisse's technical apparatus. Its
are carried off with a brilliance that
Girl look timid
and
stiff.
many
individual
makes the Breton Serving
Matisse was also learning
how
to
compose. He
knew, for instance, how to keep the picture from straggling away edges. reau,
The "You could hang your
hat
on them
if
the
at
verticals of the decanters are so forthright that, said
Mo-
you wanted," while the
horizontals of dado and picture frame provide a complementary steadying influence.
The
picture
had attempted before.
It
is
is
bolder and firmer than anything Matisse
also his salute to Impressionism,
whose
in-
fluence he had been able to assimilate in a very short time.
But whatever The Dinner Table
is, it is
above
all
a farewell. Matisse al-
know when he had got all he could out of one way of painting, and he knew when he had finished The Dinner Table that he had mastered Impressionism and was ready to move on. Henceforth he would be out on his own. In this context, he was to remember many times Moreau's prophetic statement: "You were born to simplify painting." Working his way toward this goal with characteristic persistence,
ways seemed
to
Matisse eventually produced, in the decade before 1914, the great paintings that proved
Moreau
to be right.
19
H
lenri Matisse
was schooled as a lawyer, and did not
take up art seriously until his early twenties. But did,
he pursued his training with the
logic
when he
The Late
and
determination of an attorney defending a client.
He was
Beginner
sure of what he wanted to do, and he was not afraid to
express opinions.
Beaux-Arts
When to
his
On
in Paris,
his first
morning
the Ecole des
he strode into class with his hat on.
annoyed teacher objected, Matisse
have calmly informed him,
you shut the window. There
Such
at
"I'll
is
take
off as
it
supposed
soon as
a strong draft in here."
a demonstrably self-assured
man would seem to
be equally certain of his artistic goals. But
many
is
torturous years to develop his
own
guidance of his teacher Gustave Moreau, Arts, he gained the fundamentals of
it
took Matisse
style. at
Under the
the Beaux-
drawing and
composition; by examining Impressionist paintings he
came
to
understand the intense feeling pure color could
The
serious and poised
convey; from his study of Cezanne he learned that a
Matisse painted this
painting must be solidly constructed. These revelations
portrait in Paris in 1900,
were the results of years of keen observation and wearying toil
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; years during which the despairing
artist
was often
on the brink of abandoning painting. Matisse copied
museum works, experimented
when he was 31 years old. He continued to observe and paint himself throughout his
life
straightforward
with different styles and
self-
in
self-
portraits (page 81), in deft
wrestled with the concepts of the masters and the
crayon sketches (page 6)
moderns. From
and as an
an
art that
this quest a
vital art
emergedâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;
appeared deceptively simple, but one that only
a passionately dedicated
20
new and
man
could have created.
artist
model (pages
Self- Fori mil.
1
L900
with his 10- III).
21
QM
'Wi
^V O^T Gustave Moreau: The
22
I
nicorns,
c.
1890
A
gifted painter
and a superb teacher, Gustave Moreau
1890s inspired and guided some of France's artists,
modern
including Matisse, Georges Rouault and Albert Marquet.
Moreau's own paintings were traditional unconventional richness,"
in content.
filling
at
He
in
technique but
followed a rule of "necessary
pictures like The
fantasies of elegant
teacher
finest
in the
I
nicorns (left) with ornate
maidens and mythological beasts. But as a
the Beaux-Arts,
Moreau encouraged simple and
colorful pictures, urging his students into the streets to paint
what they saw.
Moreau's favorite student was Rouault.
whose early work (below) reveals
industrial countryside of his youth, with
and random, vicious
fights.
a deeply religious
man
his visceral feeling for the its
brutalizing factories
Another pupil was Marquet, who was
also introspective but to the point of chronic self-depreciation.
Overshadowed by Matisse and Rouault.
partly because he
so shy, he went unrecognized until late in
landscapes and scenes of daily
life
life,
when
his
was
modest
gained him some fame. Albert Marquet: Nude Called Fauve, 1898
Georges Rouault: LeChantier, 1897
23
Breton Serving Girl, 1896
* ^•%i
1
4
1
K 'i
it I < I •
hI •
."^bL
Sti« Life with Fruit Dish. 1897-1898
M
his studies
was 27, that he
first
attempted paintings that were more
with Moreau, but outside the classroom he spent lonely
than exercises.
One
of the finest of these
hours
Girl (top),
latisse gained technical expertise
from
at his easel desperately trying to assimilate all that
he was learning. to Belle Isle
24
It
was not
until he took a
on the coast of Brittany
summer trip when he
in 1896,
which shows Matisse's interest
and setting of the Dutch masters. More
is
Breton Serving
in the detail
significantly, at
Belle Isle he began to understand the effects of pure
The Dinner Table (or La Desserte), 1897
above.
collection of
modern
Matisse's awareness of color was gained at Belle Isle
by Van Gogh
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; the
an entirely unexpected way. He met the painter John
art.
color, as
in
is
P. Russell,
seen in the luminous
who had worked
still life at left,
with the great Impressionist
Claude Monet. Through Russell's own work and his
art
artist
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; he gave Matisse two drawings was liberated from "museum"
At the urging of Moreau, Matisse in Paris painted
The Dinner Table (above), a rich evocation of Impressionism that glows with shimmering colors.
25
I he deliberate Matisse I
was never stampeded by his own
painting exactly. In this he was guided by the work of
discoveries. His career was a sequence of revelations
Cezanne, whose painting Three Bathers he kept
followed by periods of sober reflection and synthesis.
studio for most of his
Thus, once he understood the power of pure colors, he
Cezanne's genius that he would constantly remind his
resolutely solidified his art by learning to construct a
friends,
"Cezanne
is
life.
the master of us all."
Male Model,
26
in his
So much did Matisse believe
c.
1900
in
Matisse's Male Model (below,
Cezanne, with
and the
its
left) is
solidity of a stone statue.
Carmelina (below, right)
more mature
clearly in debt to
angular planes, dark blues and greens,
effort.
The
is
in
way
Another nude study.
many ways
essential lesson
not forgotten
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; the painting has been planned as though
by a gifted architect. The sharp planes of Cezanne give to a sense of roundness, although the colors are
still
a subtler, softer,
subdued. Soon they would burst out, but Matisse was
from Cezanne
moving
is
at his
own
pace toward a personal style.
Carmelina. 1903
27
28
Experiments with the Dot
Matisse, in fair
March 1897. could be thought
He had an
share of the cream.
official
to
have gotten more than
his
had
ideally stimulating teacher, he
recognition as an artist and he had the support of people whose
One
opinions mattered.
hung
of his paintings
of the head of the French state.
One
in
the country residence
of his champions was Puvis de Cha-
vannes, president of the Salon, and another was the influential art critic
Roger Marx. His fellow students recognized purpose and acknowledged him
formed people were
to be their natural leader. Lively
his friends. Best of all.
major painting, The Pinner Table,
and painting had
paint
A month view
later the
at last
his extraordinary fixity of
paid
in
cream curdled.
"You would have thought."
attack.
which he
telt
that his love for
When
The Dinner Table was put on first
time, under open
said Matisse, referring to the
wine
carafes in the picture, "that there were microbes at the bottom of
my decanters." The ism,
which many people
still felt
been to hire a professional
model, Matisse dressed his wife as a torero for this painting.
awkward position and
accidentally plucked the guitar strings. Matisse,
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; had just been put on show the
museum by
and their display
in the
museum
distraction, kicked his easel
and
They both
burst into laughter, breaking the
tension and enabling Matisse to
a wealthy collector, Gustave Caillebotte,
museum, long
(
Mme.
and con-
Impressionist-type painting to the Salon.
This was nonsense out to
make
both
in
human and
Matisse),
artistic terms.
a stir; he was out to explore,
one
Matisse was not
after another, the long-
term prospects for painting. Moreau was a great teacher, but there were gaps in his teaching that his students had to
fill
in for themselves. Ce-
zanne, for instance, was never mentioned in his classroom student
1903
a stronghold of dull
ventional academic art, had aroused a lively controversy. Matisse was
complete the work.
The Guitarist
at the Musee du Luxembourg, modern art. The paintings had
of
suspected of deliberately adding to the fuss by sending a provocative,
angered by the
sent the painting flying.
masterpieces by Monet, Renoir
As he
struggled with the work, she grew tired in the
left to
was not respectable. A large group of
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; among them
then Frances equivalent of a Too poor
all
painting was taken as a manifesto for Impression-
Impressionist paintings
and Pissarro
in-
off.
the Salon, Matisse found himself, for the
at
and
he had just completed a
who had
not
come
to grips
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; and
a
with Cezanne simply was not
equipped to cope with the central question of 20th Century painting:
"What should
a picture
be?"
29
.
Painters have asked themselves this question since the beginning of time, hut around 1900
had a peculiar complexity. Almost everyone
it
agreed that the painter was no longer bound to imitate what he saw before him, that
was for him, not nature,
it
what a painting
to dictate
He could heighten color, reshape forms, rearrange objects as he liked. He could add, and he could omit. Once the humble servant of nature, he could now claim to be nature's rival and equal. But freedom carries with it the elements of doubt and uncertainty. A man who can should be.
do anything
will often find
hard to decide what
it
do. For this reason the years between 1900
an exceptionally rapid turnover
is
it
and 1914 were marked by
What was "in" one
painting styles.
in
he most wants to
year was "out" the next. For a painter like Matisse, neither young nor
was especially
self-assured, the situation
In
any
a picture
difficult.
case, the question before Matisse
be?" but. "Can
this point,
I
was soon not,
go on painting?"
whom he had met Madame
tual friends.
month
a
up
was
further,
was Amelie-
from the country near
girl
or so before at the wedding of
Matisse ranks high
in
to
sale of a
his father
to get married. His wife
Noelie-Alexandrine Parayre, a beautiful
Toulouse,
and
To complicate matters
threatening to discontinue his support.
January 1898 Matisse decided
off,
should
living,
on a small allowance from home and the occasional
painting. But The Dinner Table had put people
in
"W hat
He had been
mu-
the canon of artists' wives.
Matisse loved and prized her for her beautiful dark hair, for her distinction of carriage, for the
way she could carry
off all kinds of fancy
dress and for the gaiety with which she lent herself to this studio makeI
he photograph above was taken
of Matisse's wedding, when,
al
the time
a1
the age
ol 29,
he had dim hi-- about continuing his painting, but not about his decis
to
marrj
Parayre. She was. to him, "a person
^melie
I'M
8. 1808.
man) years she lavished on Matisse
devotion that included equal parts self-sacrifice
and the utmost pracl
nl
and
to help Matisse,
There years
in the difficult
no one could have been more staunch or resourceful. After a briel wedding trip to London, Matisse and his bride went on
oi greal
kindness, strength and gentleness." Their
wedding took place on January
belies e. But within the elegant figure stood fortitude personified.
was nothing she would not do
and
to Corsica.
was February
It
apartment
1899 before they got back
a
19 Quai St. -Michel. Paris, however, was not the same. While they were
generous
icalil
an extended and economical honeymoon
and
to Paris
gone, Gustave Moreau had died
settled again in the
at
some time
of the cancer which for
\
had made his
life
unbearable. His successor
was Fernand Cormon,
"How
the Ecole des Beaux-Arts
old
is
in his
he?"
On
classroom. "Is that
learning that the undeniably se-
rious Matisse was going on 30 years old, he sent
have
to give
M
latisse
way
to a
that he
would
had missed Moreau dreadfully, and now he missed the enart classes
no substitute. At the Salon he was there, Puvis de to
word
younger student.
vironment of the school. Private
want
Cormon man seri-
a painter of popular historical canvases.
was appalled by Matisse's work
ous?" he asked.
at
less
and
and part-time less
ateliers
welcome, for
were
his patron
Chavannes, had died, and the other members did not
be bothered with Matisse's controversial canvases. Paris had be-
To make even the shadow of a living, he had to months in 1900, for instance, he worked on the decoration of the Grand Palais, a huge exhibition hall then being gilding a built just off the Champs-Elysees. Much of it was hackwork
come a
desert for him.
turn to menial work. For
cornice of laurel leaves, for example
30
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; but
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
Matisse did
it
as conscien-
'
tiously as he did everything else. His friend Marquet,
who was
em-
also
ployed on the job, lacked Matisse's self-discipline. "Just think," he said
one morning shortly
had begun, "another seven hours
after they
to
To which Matisse replied, "Say that again and I'll kill you!" The damp and the dust of the half-finished Grand Palais gave Matisse
go!"
an attack of bronchitis that he could not shake
him
1901 his father took
mountain
air
It
did,
in the spring of
few weeks, hoping the
to Switzerland for a
would cure him.
and
off,
and while there he painted several
small-scale landscapes. But the big projects that might have reassured
were held
his father
in
abeyance. Despairing once and for
all
of his
son's future as a painter, Emile Matisse finally cut off the small
lowance that had been Matisse's main source of support. With not a gle patron
and with three small children (Marguerite
in sight,
who became
married art historian Georges Duthuit; Jean, died in 1976; and Pierre
New York
City), Matisse
is
* ~ y
,?:?+*
.
t^r
•
al-
sin-
later
a sculptor,
President of the Pierre Matisse gallery in
had no choice but
to return
home
to his
*
te3
m
flfuL^
parents' house at Bohain-en-Vermandois.
I
i
w JH
he years 1902 and 1903 were a time of dread and dudgeon for Ma-
tisse.
He
He hung his
pictures in the Salons, but few of
group of admirers
tried to get a small
him, but nothing came of
among
relatives. If
Matisse,
it.
to
them found buyers.
band together and subsidize
who opened
a small hat
Madame
shop on the Rue de Chateaudun, the
household might not have kept going. Yet during this period of extreme crisis,
Matisse
at last
discovered where he wanted to go in painting—
Matisse came to know Cezanne's work through
sense.
visits to
who owned Cezannes by
hind his apparently pathological sloth
middle of conversations
Matisse
—Vollard often
Ambroise
the dozens. Befell
asleep in the
— this curious man had an exceptional business
He knew good work when he saw
is
wn
much
the family
earl) snapshot ol him, his wife
children
and Cezanne showed him the way. Vollard, the great art dealer,
4
His children were periodically farmed out
had not been for the resourcefulness of
it
it,
and he knew how
to bind art-
him hand and foot, buying their paintings when no one else would and putting them under contract. The extent of Vollard's hold-
Pierre, at loft: Jean, with a friend
perched on his shoulders; and Marguerite.
Marguerite was and
pal ientl)
totall)
devoted
record-keeper. But in 1939,
it
is
drawings and paintings. The bo vs. more restless,
evaded that task as often as the)
as models. Ml the children, with
his acquisitions
probably safe to say that
at
museum. To
step into his
little
painting, The Paintei
s
Family (page.87).
and a haphazard
the time of his death
shop was an adventure.
Matisse was introduced to this adventure by Camille Pissarro, an older painter
help them. to study.
Where
who loved young people and would do anything he could to One day he told Matisse that Cezanne was the man for him
Cezanne, he
said,
was the exact opposite of the Impressionists.
they set out to capture whatever fleeting effect nature set in
their way,
Cezanne preferred
his pictures tightly
to leave nothing to chance.
He
organized
and completely. Every stroke had a meaning, and
the meaning was directed and controlled by Cezanne. Matisse had long
wanted
to follow
Moreau's advice
to "simplify painting,"
zanne showed him how. The secret was
to put
those elements that were essential to his
own
down on
Madame
Matisse, appear in the famous Matisse
he owned more Impressionist and Post-Impressionist master-
pieces than any
to her father
posed again and again for
ings in paintings by Cezanne, Degas, Renoir and others has never been
— he was secretive about
in this
could, but the) inn. singly or together, served
ists to
made known
man
and throe
and now Ce-
the canvas only
idea.
31
,
This discovery so haunted Matisse that he
Cezanne continually
ing by
felt
he had to have a paint-
hand. Another painter might have settled
at
1899 he managed to
for a photograph or a print, but not Matisse. In
scrape together 500 francs for a
down payment on
Vollards: Three Bathers.
had seen
at
Vollard,
who was
inclined to say, "I'll think
by
tiplied the price
Cezanne he
a small
was not always easy
It
it
buy from
to
over," while he mul-
But for once Matisse was lucky, and for 1,500
10.
francs he got not only the Cezanne, but also a small head of a boy by
Gauguin and a bust by Rodin. There were
be
to
many moments who saw that
tisses
were near
to destitution.
a deep-sea diver
Looking at of
many
human body
even
if
this
easy to see why. Three Bathers
is
much
home
at
open
in the
they don't mean
Cezanne's bathers do not. look as
it
it.
one
is
pictures in which Cezanne tackled the problem of portraying
the naked gest,
work,
the Ma-
But Matisse needed the picture the way
needs oxygen, and would never be parted from
his later
which
at
"Sell your Cezanne!" was the advice of friends
Most pictures of
air.
to, that this is
He managed
to
make
in their setting as the trees
in the picture.
awkwardness that
his
undressed bodies grass,
The
real people
picture
is
all
less
and he did
important than
His bathers have the kind of blundering
have
have an unfeigned, organic quality ing water.
affairs.
and
by treating them simply as objects, no more or
anything else
this sort sug-
an unnatural state of
such situations, but they also
in
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; like the trees and
one, and what makes
rocks and movall
it
one
the
is
unifying, directing intelligence of the artist.
I he first effect of Three Bathers I
upon Matisse was
that he decided to
restudy the problem of the nude. Cezanne's approach was sculptural in that
he wanted to give his figures weight and volume, fullness and
roundness. Never one to feign a knowledge he did not possess, Matisse
went humbly back Only when he was
old,
famous and
totally
to school
and learned
Cezanne's Three Bathers, which he had bought in
1899.
When
In-
presented the small painting to the Petil Palais
Museum, he expressed some
purchase
through
owned
it
all
this
sustained
originally
and keep
it
terior, but spent
close to
His
him
first
de Paris, he
L.
Barye, Jaguar
months studying the anatomy of the
its
ex-
hare.
major piece of sculpture was a standing male nude, The
was inspired by
the subsequent years: "I have
It
model who posed
me
la Ville
assigned, for instance, to copy a
bronze by the French 19th Century animal sculptor A.
canvas for 37 years. ...
It
has
spiritually in the critical
of
When
in
to
my career as an artist; have drawn from my faith and my perseverance." moments
worked and worked and worked.
Devouring a Rare, Matisse was not content to merely reproduce
of the
deep feelings that had impelled him
do sculpture. Enrolling
the free sculpture classes offered by the Ecole de
sure of his art could Matisse bear to part with
from the dealer, Vollard.
to
Italian peasant
a
for
famous Rodin sculpture, Man it
11
alking,
Serf.
and the
was a model often used by Rodin, a powerful
named Bevilacqua. But
as with the Barye sculpture,
I
it
there was no question of mere imitation. Bevilacqua was a square-built giant of a
man
with a markedly anthropoid appearance, and Matisse had
him pose more than 500 times before he was 500
sittings to find out exactly
and abbreviate pleted
in
what
satisfied.
He used
to emphasize, distort, rearrange
order to capture the essence of the man.
work was Bevilacqua,
all
those
right, but
it
was also
The com-
a fortress
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; an
image of strength and resistance that went far beyond everyday experience.
At the same time Matisse was also painting Bevilacqua, and the brushstrokes he used on this series of male nudes were very different
from the
32
delicate, petal-like brushstrokes
he had been using on his
little
-
landscapes.
The nudes look
as
though they had been hewn out of stone
with a chopper. Matisse would dent the figure beneath the
left
breast,
wounded warrior, or scar and slash the forms of the bodv, emphasizing them to the point of parody. He would examine
for instance, like a
those forms under strong light that was by turns white, purple, gingerred and greeny-biue. In short, he was wrestling with the lessons of
Cezanne and Rodin
as Jacob had wrestled with the angel.
nude and again went
In 1901 he turned to the female
power and monumentality and strange, arresting did not dig into the living flesh as he had did break through to a quite
new
colors.
all
out for
Although he
done with the male nudes, he
intensity of expression.
He would
put
the model, for instance, against an orange background and draw in her
nose and eyebrow
one unbroken sickle-shaped
in
line. It
was a
line that
had nothing to do with the "good painting" of the academy, and noth-
And
ing to do with actual experience.
yet, for all that,
It
rectly
and more vividly than
comes quilted and
felted
had ever
art
and wrapped
it
was manifestly
woman more didone before. What normally
recorded the experience of looking
right.
at a
naked
in asbestos
is
here branded upon
the senses with a red-hot iron.
Painting of this kind puts a tremendous strain upon the tisse
artist.
Ma-
always appeared to be the most circumspect of men, but actually
he worked
in
an atmosphere of intense and lasting anguish. At the easel
he often showed
all
bled, wept, cursed,
the physical
symptoms
of extreme fear: he trem-
broke out into torrential sweats and was subject
to
impulses of unaccountable violence. His son-in-law Georges Duthuit
once wrote that "Matisse knew many did not by
any means go forward
interrupted mystical ascension. single burst of flame.
He
a
moment
of panic. His evolution
in a blaze of light. It
Nor
was not an un-
did he ever burn himself out in a
progressed toward an idea of reality that was
Turning
to sculpture in a
exploration of the ( 1
)()()
began work
deepening
human
in cla\
form, Matisse
mi
in
a piece called Tin-
Serf ai ln> Paris studio (left) on Quai St. Michel. Matisse aimed to simplify, eliminating
everything extraneous qualities of a subject.
In 1
I
lie
essential
o reach that goal, he
heeded the great Rodin's advice that a sculptor should consider each element
human bodv
ol
the
as a separate unit: in the final
version of this
first
sculpture. The Serf
(above), completed in 1903, Matisse omitted as superfluous to the expressiveness of the figure the arm-- that appeared in the study.
*:
constantly being revised. Flights into the empyrean alternated with pe-
and darkness
riods of doubt
himself that the earth was
Put
in plain
in
still
which he needed, as
it
there."
words, Matisse suffered
when he
painted, and he often
sought relief in more routine kinds of work. Paris
many much neys
in
those days had
small art schools, and he took to dropping in on their classesas a
prima ballerina
at
in the
the height of her career
among
every morning and slaves
art
were, to reassure
course of a day might take him
Rue de Rennes
school in the
still
goes to class
the beginners at the barre. His jourall
over Paris, from a private
Academie Colarossi, then back
to the
again after dinner to the municipal sculpture school in the
Marcel. In class he would work patiently
at
Rue Etienne
the assigned task, keeping
the model in one pose long after the other students had tired of
When
correction time came, the teacher
Eugene Carriere,
— who
might be someone
mothers and children
a painter of sentimental
it.
like
— was
often appalled by what Matisse was doing, but he could not help being
awed by
his tenacity of purpose.
A man can be very tenacious indeed and still be grateful for a friend who shares his ideas. In March 1901 Matisse found such a friend. At a retrospective exhibit of Van Gogh's work at the Galerie BernheimJeune, he
fell
men were
Vlaminck. The two
made
conversation
into
with
Andre Derain and Maurice
close friends and neighbors, and the)
a spectacular pair. Both were huge,
conspicuous clothes
— one
and both wore strange and
of Vlaminck's favorite articles of costume
was a painted wooden necktie. In the euphoria of seeing so many paint-
who meant so much to come back
ings by an artist
Vlaminck pressed Matisse terside
suburb where they
sociations in
with
Derain and
Thus began one of the most fruitful asWith Derain, and to a lesser extent
art.
laminck, Matisse went on to break through, in 1905, to the
\
umph
lived.
modern French
of them,
to all
with them to Chatou, the wa-
of color lor color's sake and the
movement
tri-
called Fauvism.
who down were obviously of a younger generation. "Matisse came to see us," \ laminck said of this visit, "and he went home ten years youngIt
was
a no\el experience for Matisse to be with gifted painters
er!" In a sense
it
was
true. Matisse at the time
only 21. As for Vlaminck, although
at
was 31 and Derain was
25 he was already married and
the father of two children, he rarely had two sous to rub together and
he took
life a
was partly
great deal
more
lightly
than Matisse had ever done. This
a matter of physical type.
lossus, well
known
as a boxer
Vlaminck was a red-headed
and wrestler, with
a
co-
superabundant
energy that carried him unscathed through adventures that would have prostrated Matisse. jobs as a violinist
He supported
himself and his family with seasonal
— sometimes posing as a gypsy — and by writing pulp
novels that skirted the frontiers of pornography.
Vlaminck never thought of ing,
much
less as
work
his painting as a
that might
one day enter
being a professional painter was, in
34
a
museum. The
abhorrent
to
a liv-
idea of
him. As for es-
some sort of relationship with the great painters of the past, seemed to him an occupation both pretentious and foredoomed.
tablishing this
fact,
means of making
\
"\\ hat
do
I
care whal other people have done?" he would say. "In art.
ever) generation has to begin
over again for
all
Vlaminck
itself."
paint-
ed the way he
felt
color, straight
from the tube, and made no pretense of drawing. "Our
he said
*
painting,
directly
breathing.
.
.
He
.
was a way of being or acting,
It
used pure
lie
describing this approach, ""was not an inven-
later,
tion but an attitude.
and without preliminaries,
thinking, of
of
instinctively used colors that stood at the verv top
them with the kind of abandon
of the register, and he used
that
found
is
Early Vlamincks look, in fact, like the work of a
in children's art.
tal-
ented eight-year-old.
Matisse was fascinated to discover that Vlaminck had arrived. b\ sheer force of instinct,
the same feeling for the role of color that he,
at
Even
Matisse, had reached through conscious effort and adjustment. so.
was not with
it
Derains painting
laminck that he became intimate, but with Derain.
\
time was an ambitious, painstaking, low-keyed
at this
derivation of Cezanne. Unlike Vlaminck, tellectual
Derain
pursuits,
knew
subjects and
a great deal
time, he could match
\
was Vlaminck's equal
laminck
who claimed
enormously on
read
about the history of
rough
s
talk
in physical strength:
despise in-
to
wide
a
art.
varietv
of
At the same
when he wanted
to.
and he
Derain thought nothing
ol
bicycling 100 miles a day.
D
erain and
camped out warmth;
the
company
a difference
an abandoned riverside restaurant, burning
in
for
laminck were classic outsiders. In the winter the)
\
in
its
furniture
good weather they toured the countryside, alone or
in
of a motley group of bohemians and bums. But there was
between them.
\
lamincks parents
lived a life scared
\
lev-
precarious than his own, while Derains father was a prosperous Cha-
tou baker w ipal
council.
shop on the town square and a seat on the municlam nek called Derain. half in resentment, half in ad-
ith a
\
i
miration, "a hot-house plant," and
Derains father forbade
it
did not surprise
him when
laminck
house.
his son to bring \
to the
At 18, while Vlaminck was batting around the countryside like a buc-
caneer
search of his prey, Derain was a serious art student, patient
in
copying Ghirlandaio's Christ Carrying the Cross
Vlaminck went
off to serve his time in the
thing as a frolic
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; playing cymbals
uting articles on
every \
army
moment he
life to
in
in
the Louvre.
I
When
army, he treated the whole
the regimental band and contrib-
an anarchist newspaper; Derain detested
spent in the service and could hardlv wait to get out.
laminck went lor painting as mindlessly as a bull goes for a mat-
ador; to Derain painting was part of the whole world of ideas.
He had
read widely in phvsics and philosophy, in poetry and art history, and
he knew that old ideas about the nature of the universe and the forces within
it
were being rejected on every hand.
less, radical investigations.
exempt from
this. In the
north of France prophetically, over.
Where
in
"As
It
Derain did not see
was a time for new,
why
fear-
painting should be
winter of 1901. writing to Vlaminck from the
the midst of his military service, Derain observed for painting.
painting
is
I
realize that the period of realism
is
concerned, we're only beginning.
Derain's turn of mind was particularly congenial to Matisse. Derain
35
in his
way was
man: he would have
a universal
mark
liked to leave his
— on the theater, on philosophy, on erature, even perhaps on politics — whereas Matisse was only and solely upon many spheres of
activity
lit-
when Derain
interested in art. But
put aside physics, metaphysics and
the ethics of colonial government, and got painting, his thoughts rain reached, quite
on
his
that painting should offer it.
"The
down
to the
and Matisse's had a way of running
problems of parallel.
De-
own, the basic premise of 20th Century
art:
an equivalent of nature, not an imitation of
made," he wrote,
great mistake that painters have
have
"is to
momentary effects of nature. It has never struck them what makes these effects has nothing to do with what makes a good
tried to render
that
painting."
To Derain, ened
a
good painting gave the viewer the same sense of height-
vitality that
he got from looking
not the mimicry, that counted. putting
down
color so that
vous system. To do
this,
it
The
would
nature
at
— and
was the
it
vitality,
painter's job was to find a
way of
upon the viewer's
act directly
ner-
he had to be willing to abandon a large part of
the unwritten contract that had hitherto existed between the painter
and his audience. According
to this contract, the visual
fered by the painter was supposed
to
approximate
experience the
to
experience offered by nature. The closer the painting came to
more successful
it
mark Matisse made seen
women
Now
was.
changed. And nothing to
like the
laws of
its
Robust, individualistic Maurice n here in
middle age
\\ itli
did not seriousl) begin until
whom
Derain. with
"To
lie
lie
and
shared a ramshackle
more than
in
when he was tically
Henceforth the picture was an object
come
in its
subject only to
close to this kind of painting in the winter
struggling with the lessons of Cezanne. But characteris-
he was slow to make up his mind. For the
way and
it,
that,
sometimes
letting his painting
moment he
hand run
free,
tacked this
sometimes
met \ndre
he a painter," he said,
business, an) lover, racer,
laminck
— had a passion for painting but
huge palette
studio.
\
hi^ pipe
to be
own making.
Matisse had actually
show
was about
the
ones he painted. "I don't paint women,** Matisse
independent of the object that inspired
right,
visual
this,
summed up the change more concisely than a resomeone who complained that Matisse had never
replied, "I paint pictures."
own
this familiar experience
of-
""is
mil a
he an anarchist,
dreamer or prizefighter."
producing work that was almost Germanic
These
have been due
shifts in style could
money matters and
the dreariness of his
where he was forced
to
in its careful
to his private distress
life in
spend so much of
workmanship. over
Bohain-en-Vermandois,
his time in the winters of
1902 and 1903.
In general, however, Matisse disdained
No one
to let his
inner feelings show.
could have guessed, for example, that the dazzling picture he
painted of
Madame
Matisse as The Guitarist (page 28)
thing but the work of a happy man.
backed chair, dressed her
in a
He posed
in
1903 was any-
his wile in a straight-
pseudo-Spanish costume that
dark southern beauty, gave her a guitar to pluck
— or
set off
her
feign to pluck
placed her against a brightly patterned quasi-Spanish backdrop and
added some yellow flowers
Madame
in a crystal vase. In its
Matisse's costume
by Manet, and the pose of a the young the picture
36
woman is
it
brilliant,
echoed the lustrous black accents used
woman
lutanist of
use of black to accent
bent over a guitar harked back to
Vermeer's The Love
Letter.
Technically
but Matisse in later years remembered
it
as
being a very fidgety picture to paint, one that he produced under great tension every step of the way. In the spring of 1904, Matisse received an invitation
summer
Paul Signac to spend the
years of apparently directionless work
came
an end.
to
had been waiting for something to happen, as
D-sr
1
important was on with, and Signac
S
'ignac
was
been around
He
way.
its
was
to
if
It
was as
Ma-
if
he knew something
longed for someone to talk
argue
to
to,
be that much-needed person.
six years older
in the
from the painter
with him at St.-Tropez, and the five
than Matisse,
just
old
enough
have
to
1880s when Georges Seurat brought a new kind of
painting to Paris. Signac never forgot and never recovered from, the impact of Seurat's Bathing Place,
shows
a
isnieres
(pages
12-43).
The painting
group of young working-class Frenchmen amusing themselves
by the Seine during their luncheon break.
Some
are in the water,
some
are on the bank; in the distance are the factories to which they will
presently return. it
the most ordinary of scenes, yet Seurat has raised
It is
monumental grandeur, It
by endowing the individual figures with a
to the level of epic, partly
employing a new painting technique.
partly by
was called Pointillism. or Divisionism, or Neo-Impressionism. and
it
consisted of a novel brushstroke and a completely scientific use of color.
Every color was applied
color was accompanied by
brought
out, raised
it
technique
to its
it
in
exact lozenge-shaped dots, and ever)
its
complementary color
maximum
what seemed
in reaction to
pressionism, and during his short illness
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; he used
it
European
one
that
to
him the aimlessness
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; he died
of
Im-
at
31 of an undiagnosed
of the greatest
and most completely
life
some
to paint
successful pictures in
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; the
strength. Seurat developed his
art.
But Seurat's paintings do not owe their greatness to Pointillism alone.
He had
a superfine social sense
and a
gift for
composition such
Sunday ifternoon on the Island
<>/
La Grande
Jatt'e
a painting like
(page
with
II).
its
characters drawn from every rung on the social ladder, Seurat present-
ed a whole society with the assurance of a Tolstoi or a Balzac.
how
to
mingle high
panorama of performers and
of art together.
Above
He knew
painter mel
1 1 j,
with
gift for
One knows
nieres,
s
finall)
gave
devote himself to
in,
all
about the young workmen in Bathing Place,
young men who are the prisoners of an industrial Paul Signac knew that died with him, and he
when Seurat
felt
seen. Signac himself was
it
his
died,
its
ts-
all
society.
something irreplaceable had
duty to bear witness to what he had
no genius, but he had been close enough
Seurat to study his methods minutely.
He came
to think,
to
more and
more, that Seurat's technique was the natural culmination of a process that
had been going on
all
1820, had begun to break
looked
at
from
during the 19th Century. Delacroix, around
down
a distance, thev
his colors in
respectable
allowed Derain to
art.
the memorable
and not only about these particular young men, but about
a
The young to
In--
ot
talent and future prospects thai the
Derain parents
image. His paintings are full of things that once seen are never forgotten.
prosperous
enormous lamih opposition
spectators, he put the two kinds
Seurat had a supreme
all,
ul a
vocation until Matisse spoke so glowingl)
and low, was as fascinated by billboards as by the
art
pictures in the Louvre. In paintings like The Parade (page friezclike
was the son
career, preferabl) engineering.
once or twice every hundred years. In
as occurs only
\inlrr Derairi
baker w ho wanted him to follow
such a way that, when
blended with a new intensity. More
37
recently the Impressionists had been groping in the same direction
when they
shadows could be rendered
realized that
pure color
in
in-
stead of in terms of a negative near-darkness. Seurat had given these
color experiments scientific validity. Seurat's painting was not at like the painting of the past;
it
was patient and persnickety, and
frenzied brushstrokes played no part.
method was,
at
all
fine
But Signac thought Seurat's
the very least, the transitional step to the future.
Undeterred by the
no one but Seurat had ever made
fact that
success of Pointillism, Signac set out to publicize
He
it.
a total
talked about
it
incessantly to everyone within earshot, and in 1899 he published a book
about
From Delacroix
it,
to
Neo-Impressionism.
It is
book powered by
a
who will not be content who will have the per-
confidence in the future, addressed to "those
to do over again what has been done already, but
ilous
honor of creating a new way of painting and expressing an
that
is
Something of Signac's optimism must have
theirs alone."
brushed
off
on
ideal
his readers, for the
book was widely read and widely
its readers was Matisse, who always new in art. and who must have been especially struck lines: "The triumphant colorist has only to appear: we
Undoubtedly one of
talked about.
kept up with the
by
closing
its
have prepared his palette for him.
When
Signac invited Matisse to St.-Tropez for the
ably had in
mind
to gain a
who was keenly
tractive to Matisse,
addition, there
new and important
convert.
summer he probThe visit was at-
interested in Signac's ideas, hi
would be the color and
light of the south,
which he had
missed during the long northern winter, and there would be freedom
irom money worries. Signac was well
off:
he owned a
villa that
domi-
nated the old town of St.-Tropez and was an experienced yachtsman, with a passion for ships and the sea. Altogether the proposal was very appealing. Years later Matisse often spoke of the incongruities of this
summer.
"It didn't suit
me
he would say. Not only Signac, but a
at all,"
whole group of Signac's friends and neighbors, were devotees of the dot and of the
scientific application of color.
years learning
all
manner of
For Matisse, who had spent
subtle and unusual color combinations,
such servitude was unthinkable. "I could not live," he said
"among all those
Y. saw
provincial aunts.
the following
et
his time at
it
on
a
fall,
when he
canvas done
he spent much of
got back to Paris,
in the Pointillist style.
And
et
I
olupte (pages 16- IT)
taken from a
poem by
is
a very
odd
ple lead a life of
poem
when he
is
Baudelaire, "LTnvitation au Voyage,"
unknown and
peo-
pure pleasure in conditions of luxury and refinement.
very different from Matisse's painting.
call to
it.
sort of picture. Its
about a journey to an imaginary city where cares are
All this
Signac.
the 1905 Salon des Independants, lost no time in buying
Luxe, Calme title is
later,
mind
a
room
in
some Eastern
The images
in
the
city; Baudelaire speaks of
well-waxed furniture and mysterious perfumes, rooftops shimmering
under a humid sky, ships is
set in the
open
group of naked Luxe, Calme
38
air;
women el
I
at
anchor
in
nearby canals. Matisse's painting
somewhere by the shores of are whiling
a southern sea, a
away the day.
olupte seems to derive
on one hand from the
de-
the Impressionists' "picnics on the grass," at which
/(•inters stir I'herbe,
the ladies present happen to have taken off their clothes.
seems
also
It
to derive
from Puvis de Chavannes' paintings of an imaginary island of
the blest
where nobody has is
and spikey, and
life
looks neither rich nor easy; of feelings
idyllic
least
—a
is
it
own
— color that
I
ointillism om
where
ball
discomfort.
marked
had used
in his studio
his other
all
the as-
least expected.
is
it
also ruled out the passionate, truth-at-any-cost
that Matisse
is-
sparse
idyll that gen-
he often placed with
surance of a tennis champion putting the
P
an
is
nature. Pointillism's
dot ruled out the unpredictable strokes of color that
landscapes of this period
Matisse's
ill.
general
certain
Evidently Matisse was working against his
ever
is
The vegetation
curiously pinched, however.
land of the blest
erates the
work and nobody
to
modeling
nudes of the winter of 1900-1901.
That kind of modeling was out of the question when the brush had to stop and start every half-inch. Instead, in Luxe, tisse
turned to quite another way
('.(dine et
ot indicating the
olupte,
I
curves of the
Ma-
human
body, one based on the decorative serpentine line of Art Nouveau.
was a
line
subway
then very
much
in fashion.
stations and drawings of
ater
programs were
line
was not natural
Luxe, Calme
compose
el
I
making
Lampstands, inkwells, ashtrays,
famous actresses on the covers of
it
the-
being shaped according to Art Nouveau. But the
and the
to Matisse,
olupte
showed.
effort
was also Matisse's
had composed. Seurat,
as Seurat
to nature,
all
It
first
and
attempt to
last
had dictated
in his paintings,
wave
in
of the direction of the wind:
if
subordinate to design.
If
he wanted
flags to
a certain way, they did so
— regardless
he wanted a ship's
be rigged in a certain way, they were so rigged
—even to
if
no such ship had ever put
echo the
ranged
sails to
line of a path
to sea;
if
along the face of a
he wanted a line of clouds
cliff,
the clouds were so ar-
— regardless of meteorology. Seurat was also fond of setting up — of repeating, instance, the same arabesque
echoes in a picture
line.
fo-r
In The Circus the sinuous curve of the ringmaster's
whip
the taut curves of the acrobat's body; in Le Chahut
the upraised
arm
of the music-hall conductor
sweep of the dancers'
skirts;
carved detail on a table leg
is
in
Young
is
(
I
Huh Kick
>.
repeated in the upward
Powdering
Girl
repeated in
is
The
Herself,
repeated in the scalloped edge of the
the
girl's
bodice.
Seurat managed to build these
artificial
and composition into pictures that were intrinsically true to
thing in
it
life.
of La Grande
Every Jatte.
city park
on
I
olupte
once untrue a
— and,
tried, as
was a
and
he took Luxe, Calme
less plausible
it
looked.
when it was shown at the Salon des Indemay have attracted more young painters to
a success
in fact,
it
Pointillism than Signac's book on the subject tillism
to nature
summer Sunday has some-
from oil-sketch to finished painting, the
The painting was pendants
devices of color, technique
Matisse, never one to abandon a project,
had tried to do the same. But the more he el
at
false trail. In the
summer
of 1905,
— but
for Matisse Poin-
when Derain
got out of
the army, the two friends headed south to the fishing village of Collioure,
where Matisse was
make him, before
to get
back to the kind of work that was to
long, a key figure in
European painting.
39
D,uring the
last
half of the 19th Century,
Darwin and
Wallace promulgated the theory of evolution, Pasteur proved that bacteria caused disease and Edison switched
on the
electric light.
The advances
young artist named Georges Seurat through
logic
in science stimulated a
to try to achieve
what his predecessors, the Impressionists,
had done by instinct and emotion:
to
Making a Science of Art
capture in paint the
purity of nature's colors; he wanted to replace
Impressionism's subjectivity with an objective record of reality.
Studying the theories of chemists and physicists,
Seurat worked out divisionism, or Pointillism
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; a system
of stippling the canvas with individual dots of pure,
complementary colors
Signac's lithograph advertising the
avant-garde Theatre-Libre (hence the letters "T-L")
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; red and green, for example. He
theory.
did not his
mix pigments on a palette or combine them with
brush on the canvas, for he believed that the small
dots, each the
same
size, laid precisely side
by
would
side,
letters
to reproduce the full range of natural
colors in the viewer's eye. Later Seurat
seem even more Seeming
scientific
to offer a
by adding geometric
new orderliness
Pointillism attracted another
who undertook
made the system
also a
Running up and down the
and throughout the double
borders are pure colors arranged in a I
combine themselves
is
demonstration of Point illist
sequence devised by Charles
lenrv, an esthetician-
mathematician whose theories color-contrast and
of
harmony
greatly influenced the Point illists.
rules.
In the circular painting at the
in painting,
center, Signac's dots demonstrate
young artist, Paul Signac,
to explain Seurat's theories in print. In
1904, 13 years after Seurat's death, Signac introduced
another
of
Henry's ideas on color
interactions: the spectators hair
changes color as
it
appears against
the background of the stage, the
Pointillism to Matisse.
The orderly-minded Matisse
experimented with the method but soon discarded
was too imaginative an
artist to
be restricted by rules
his preoccupation with the relationship of colors.
40
it;
footlights
and his own neck.
he Paul Signac:
in
Ipplicationdu
Cercle Chromatiaue de Mr. Ch.
Henry, 1888-188*)
41
G
leorges Seurat,
some
who introduced
of his theories with this
monumental
was a shy young
picture,
man who was
willing to lead a
revolution in painting. Perhaps he
would
have led a social
also
revolution, for his circle of friends
consisted of artists
some
of the most radical
and writers of the time.
Although Seurat never spoke of his political beliefs, this painting, so
widely admired on purely artistic
grounds,
may
feelings.
For instance, the small
reveal
on the boat
figures
some of his
flying the
French
flag could represent Seurat's view of
the current French government, a
government turned
its
that, like the figures,
to find a little recreation in the
had
back on the workers trying
on the shore
foreground.
Whether
or not the painting has a
message,
it
for color
and composition. In
displays Seurat's genius it,
Seurat had not yet fully developed his
technique of the dot brushstroke, but his
concern with the precise
application of color
is
evident.
The
superbly disciplined placement of the figures leads the eye across the
foreground and into the distance, and light
balances shade to achieve a
subtle
harmony. Indeed, when Signac
saw the picture, he sensed that he was in the
presence of a masterpiece and
he spent the
rest of his life
working
for a broader appreciation of Seurat
and
his
remarkable technique.
42
-
Georges Pierre Seurat: Bathing Place (or Balling Parly), Asnieres, 1883-1884
43
1
A: more
Jthough the two Seurat paintings below may seem
chemist M. E. Chevreul.
poetic than scientific, they illustrate Pointillism's
picture
calculations of color
measures
and
line.
The upper
just over 10 feet across,
is
picture,
which
dotted with colors
that Seurat had meticulously preselected
from a chart
constructed according to principles established by the
Ceorges Pierre Seurat: Sunday
:
the poignancy of the lower
comes out of geometry
as well as genius: the
relationship between the vertical and horizontal lines of
the painting follows the formulas of Charles Henry,
who
hypothesized that certain linear combinations produce specific
Ifternoon on the Island
Georges Pierre Seurat
And
Invitation to the
emotions
in the
observer
of the Grande Jatte, 1881-1886
Sideshow (or La Parade), 1887-1888
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; a horizontal with
downward
verticals for sadness, a horizontal with
upward
Henry's theories are also demonstrated portrait below. Painted
picture's geometric
Henry claimed
to
have measured by
mathematical equation.
verticals for gaiety.
and energetic
lines that
in
the witty
by Signac, the
background of flowers,
circles, swirls
and waves runs the gamut of emotion-producing
The
subject of the picture
is
Felix Feneon.
an influential and intellectual writer
Feneon was
who became an
intimate friend of the leading Pointillists and was their
dedicated spokesman for
many
years.
Paul Signac: Portrait of Felix Feneon. against Enamel, of a Background Rhythm with Beats and Ingles, Tones and Colors. 1880
45
>vÂŤ. *.
%
:â&#x20AC;˘
A,
Lmong the many reasons Matisse discarded
Pointillism the of
its
same year he adopted
brushstrokes
to Signac
it
was the matter
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; the dots or tiny dabs that seemed,
and others, the only proper way to apply color
to canvas.
The technique appeared
purposes.
One was
practical; at
two
to serve at least
normal viewing distance
the small dots of pure color will begin to blend in the viewer's eye to
become
and shapes. (Hold
a wide range of vibrating tones
this page close
up and then look
at
it
from several yards' distance to see the difference.) The other function was less pragmatic: the Pointillists apparently
felt
that impersonal, almost mechanical
brushstrokes preserved the scientific integrity of their
work. Neither reason was convincing to Matisse.
method but found
tried to adapt himself to the
He
that he
could no more curb his brush to conform to arbitrary laws of optical mixture than he could contain his sense for color within "scientific" guidelines. In the
of 1904, following a
summer
autumn
spent with Signac in the
south of France, he came as close as he could to
orthodox Pointillism by painting the picture shown here. Despite the haunting quality he achieved, he
inhibited by the Pointillist technique
all
felt
the time he
was working, and the completed picture never pleased him. Shortly after
it
was publicly shown (and bought
by Signac), Matisse went back to his own search for a style.
But for the
rest of his life
'ointillists, for in their
own
he could be grateful to struggle with the new,
helped to liberate him from tradition. 1
46
On
his
proceed to a great exploration of color.
,
k
*,.
I-
3r
^ m mt
Luxe, (dlmcet
\
olupte.
47
'
«*
1904-1905
48
Among It
the
Wild Beasts
//
Matisse, in the spring of 1905, was 35 years old and had a painting of
which
and owes nothing
could be said unequivocally, "This
it
to
anyone
else."
beautiful paintings, but they were
He
all in
friends.
So
is
to
produce
by Matisse
many
had, to be sure, produced
the style of others.
er like a particularly conscientious executor, his predecessors
still
He was
rath-
winding up the estates of
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; of Cezanne, of the Impressionists, of Seurat and
his
he had not ventured very far out on his own. Within the
far
next few years,
all
this
was
to change.
By the spring of 1908 he would
be an international art figure, with a school and
and would have signed his name
to paintings that
many eager disciples, are now 20th Century
classics.
The beginnings ol this change date from the day in the summer of 1905 when Matisse, in company with his friend Andre Derain, left Paris for the fishing village of Collioure, near the Spanish border. The choice of Collioure as a summer place had been made by Madame Matisse, who had scouted the little town the previous fall. With its harbor of sailboats,
full
its
watchtowers and 17th Centurv
fortifications, its
color-washed houses of red, yellow and blue, Collioure could have been relentlessly picturesque. line,
tress. Signac, it
It
was saved from
by a functional tautness
was
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;a
who had
painted Collioure in 1887,
-
when
d'
n at the
Vutomne
arl
this portrait of
the artist's wife was
show
first
Salon 1905. In
in
lact. so violent
was the
crowd's reaction that Matisse did not return to the after his
it
it
in
for-
look like what
a fullback.
an ideal setting
and
Now, 18
which
to pur-
arbitrary colors
exasperated the Parisian public
made
muscular town with the shoulders of
years later, Matisse and Derain found Matisse
by a hard masculine
this
in the silhouette ol battlement
lirst
\
show
sue a bold
new
style of painting.
Meanwhile, they came that Derain
moved
to
know each other
better. Matisse discovered
easily in the world of ideas,
music or theater or philosophy as he was
and was as ready
to argue
to talk
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; for the 500th time
^the nature of the "new painting." Derain found Matisse "much more extraordinary than I expected, especially when it comes to clear thinking
and psychological speculation." Temperamentally the two were
isit.
poles apart. Derain rushed at things; Matisse took his time. Their bags //
(
oman \lmr.
with the Matisse),
llm
were scarcely unpacked before Derain was writing Vlaminck of a com-
1905
plete
change
in
his
work; Matisse, however, continued
to
struggle
49
doggedly with Seurat's dot. French painting
moment was dom-
at that
inated by this dot, and both Matisse and Derain had tried their hand at it.
But the very action of applying the dot, over and over again, was un-
men who
natural to
instinctively used the brush in a very different way.
For Matisse, there was one other insuperable objection. From a
complementary dots of intense color merged
tance, the
Around
this time,
to visit Daniel
into half-tones.
by happy accident, Derain and Matisse were taken
de Monfreid, a painter
Gauguin and who owned tisse
dis-
a
number
who had been
a close friend of
of Gauguin's Tahitian paintings. Ma-
had known about Gauguin for years, and had even purchased one
of his portraits from his career,
Ambroise Vollard. Now,
Gauguin was
at his
hear. Color,
Gauguin seemed
tually was.
He
also
seemed
at this crucial
moment
in
shoulder, telling him things he needed to
was
to say,
to say that
as
one
no
felt
art
it
to be, not as
it
ac-
can be great when the
forces within a painting neutralize one another
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
as Seurat's colored
dots did.
Matisse went away from Monfreid's house determined to bring new
meaning
to Signac's
only to appear.
We
famous prediction, "The triumphant have prepared
his palette for
plying his colors in well-regulated dabs, he
canvas
in
let
colorist has
him." Instead of ap-
them
rip across
the
whatever way suited the picture. In one famous painting from Landscape
this period,
at Collioure,
the tree trunks are brushed on
in a
serpentine line, sometimes broken, sometimes continuous. Their colors, as described to right
.
.
.
by Alfred Barr, a r ^ "as one reads the picture from
left
blue-green, maroon, bright blue, yellow-green, scarlet and
purple, dark green and violet, and, at the right, ultramarine.
spring from a ground that
is
They
spotted blue, orange, ocher and sea-green,
and they carry foliage of vermilion, green and lavender. Only the sea
in
the distance and the sky retain their natural color." It
could have been a mess, but
nature's colors, but he kept his color,
Matisse drew The Fisherman, the pen-and-ink sketch of the curving beach at right, in 1905.
when he ami
summer Derain
in
is
the painter Derain spent the
the
little
fishing port of Collioure.
the faintly seen figure
swimming
merrily in the cove beyond the patient angler.
One
of dozens of paintings ami draw ings thai
Matisse made
at
Collioure during the
summer months he sketch was later a
many
spent there, this amusing
gilt
of the art isl to his
generous Russian patron. Shchukin.
50
it
own
no matter how arbitrary
wasn't. Matisse
may have ignored
color sense intact. Every touch of
in itself,
was related
to every other
touch. Also, Matisse was helped by the natural quality of Collioure's the light of northern France, which casts deep shadows,
light. I alike
Collioure
the light
at
erything
in a
intense, blonde and all-powerful;
is
To capture
this quality in his
parts of his canvas untouched,
and the pure white
kind of diffused radiance.
painting, Matisse
left
bathes ev-
it
—along with suggesting intense sunlight
— also held the
bold colors in
balance.
n the
back
fall,
portrait of
new approach
Matisse used this
in Paris,
Madame
to color in a
Matisse that was to become one of the most famous
paintings of the centurv.
oman
//
with the
Hal (page 48). Basically the
painting was the standard upper-bourgeois portrait of the day. Matisse
chose the same pose, the same spectacular hat, the same look of super-
boredom
cilious
treated the
marked
that
human
face in
the Collioure landscape
oman
//
with the
— he rearranged
Hat exactly
its
as he
the bridge of the nose; one cheek was yellowish-green and the
when
other was pinkish-red. But
all
these unrealistic patches were put
together the end product was a portrait more real than istic portrait.
was
it
had treated
color structure to suit him-
broad green stripe ran across the forehead and another went
self. |\
down
portrait after portrait in the Salon. But he
The
—
it
a natural-
virtuoso color was not merely decorative,
color according to theory;
meaning
many
conveyed the
it
festive
was color
in
less
still
support of the picture's
message fundamental
to
such "soci-
ety" portraits.
oman
//
Hal was
with the
1905 did not think
so.
a true portrait, but the Parisian public ol
When
it
was exhibited
at
the Salon
d'Automne
of that year, along with four other Matisse canvases, there was a public
outcry. People
ter's
that the picture
felt
hensible, but that
was
it
was not simply bad or incompre-
a deliberate insult:
it
violated not only the
appearance but also the audience's concept of womanhood. They
the public was being hoaxed and vilified by a painter
felt
have come round, hat
rights to
in
hand, seeking
who ought by
favor. Painters, at
its
the turn of the century, were regarded almost as civil servants. painter
who made whims
with the
his
annual obeisances
at
the Salon,
who
kind enjoyed by
members of
public opinion was a fact of
had
all its
Matisse's
II
ing that went
previous
kept in touch
the
Church or the armed
services.
life,
by
and the dragon of public disapproval
oman
with the
Hat was not, as
it
happened, the only paint-
beyond the sedate norms of the 1905 Salon. During the
summer
a
number
with
of other painters had also been experiment-
color,
isolation. Derain's friend
sometimes as a group, sometimes
in
Vlaminck was one of the experimenters; Hen-
Manguin, Charles Camoin and Matisse's old schoolmate Albert
Marquet were others. At the same time, Rouault, although subdued matter
in color,
was startling people with the ferocity of
— grotesque portraits
was no concerted putsch it
The
trial
teeth.
ing aggressively
ri
The
of public taste, might hope for steady preferment of the
Salon was the place where reputations were made or destroyed:
still
sit-
seem
so by hanging
in
all
of circus folk and the
relatively
his subject
demimonde. There
the work of these men, but the Salon their pictures together in
one room.
made
Room
51
VII.
And
Room
the hatred of visitors to
istence of the
movement,
VII was so intense that the ex-
movement, soon became
as a
a matter of
legend.
The movement was and
There was
just as often disputed.
done
statuette of a cupid,
name
Donatello whose
is
in
Room
in
VII a small, conventional
quasi-Renaissance style by some would-be
now
The
forgotten.
Room
have walked into
said to
from an incident often described,
called Fauvism,
critic
statue and paintings, cried, "Aha, Donatello beasts] !" ers in
The name stuck and came
Room
who were
VII but to
all
Louis Vauxcelles
is
VII and, noting the discrepancy between
painters
among
[wild
fauves
les
to be applied not only to the paint-
— among
them Braque and Dufy—
attracted to unrepressed color. Matisse, as the oldest and
most publicly reviled, was their acknowledged leader. Within a month or two, his measured and purposeful
made him, almost in new way of painting.
way
of expressing himself
spite of himself, the accredited
had
ambassador of a
"Color for color's sake," a phrase originated by Derain, applied equally to
them stood
the Fauves. All of
all
for exhilaration:
"Have
a
good timer' was their message. In Paris, despite the furor over Fauvism, the idea of enjoying color
went down verv
well,
had always regarded
for Paris
art as a
funda-
mentally comfortable activity. But serious painters were coming up in other places for
whom
these painters
painting was not a superior distraction. "Color
would have better described the attitude of some of
for heaven's sake"*
— men
who used
mystical union with the universe closer to the
mark
wrongs
own
in his
for those
— while "color
who used
for pity's sake"
It
through the music and literature of central Europe
themselves dispossessed
its
painting.
man
latter painters
shout of exhilaration but a cry of protest and pain.
1914, as well as through
sense of his
color to awaken
The message of the
society.
mans
color to heighten
came
to the
was not
in
the years before
was the cry of men who
It
of the things that
a
was a cry that ran
felt
should have been theirs by
nature.
movement, which came
to be called
Expressionism, was the Norwegian painter Edvard Munch.
Munch was
n art, the great progenitor of this
six years older than Matisse but
In Oslo
it
was possible
to
had grown up
go to
jail
points of view. In 1886 the writer
in a very different world.
simply for expressing unpopular
Hans Jaeger was imprisoned,
for in-
stance, for publishing an autobiographical novel that acknowledged the
existence of sex.
Munch was
close in spirit to the dramatists Henrik
Ibsen and August Strindberg, the latter of
whom
once described Munch
as "the esoteric painter of love, jealousy, death
them, he saw established society as fundamentally perverted by the demands rejected those
Compared
made upon
it
demands punishment was to
and sadness. evil:
Like
mankind was
by society, and for those who inevitable.
the carefree world of the Impressionists
cheons out-of-doors where everyone has enough
to eat
— the
lun-
and drink, the
dances where everyone has a partner, the sailing parties where the wind never drops and no one
52
is
ever seasick
— Munch's
world
is
not agree-
able. In
Munch's paintings physical love
impotence, death and disease every young
girl,
lie in
foredoomed by treachery or
is
wait for the unblemished body of
and every evening out
is
followed by
retributive
its
Munch could not paint a crowd scene without suggesting anv moment the crowd might be cut down by cavalry; he could
hangover. that at
not paint a love scene without suggesting that fate would shortly tear
room without
the lovers apart; he could not paint a single figure in a
suggesting desertion. This was the world
was also the world of
his
own was
In 1893, while Matisse
Munch was
wells of the inner
it
was one of
a student in
still
Moreau's classroom,
life.
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; the unfocused anguish that poisons the
The Cry shows a dreamlike figure running along
toward the viewer. The mouth, the head, the sea behind
a jetty
clouds and the horizon are
all
to be hallooing in fear
henchman
the
life
painting the great picture that prefigures the 20th Centu-
ry's preoccupation with finest
is
about him, and
vagabondage and mental breakdown.
loneliness,
seems
Munch saw
private experience. His
so distorted that finally the
and agony. Color,
of the artist's thought.
hung the clouds, red
in this
the
it,
whole world
tormented scene,
"Above the blue-black
as blood, red as tongues of fire," wrote
the picture's making. "Alone, trembling with anguish,
fiord
Munch
of
became aware
I
of the vast, infinite cry of Nature."
A
kt
the turn ol the century this cry was heard
ple felt instinctively that terrible times
could be done about
it.
all
over Europe. Peo-
were coming and that nothing
Private misfortunes were seen as metaphors for
an approaching collective disaster that would put an end forever old familiar
ways of
life.
Taboos that had held
to the
generations were
fast for
In I8 ( ).i.
suddenly seen as degrading; "pillars of society" were derided as hypocrites,
free
and the very notion of authority was considered offensive
men.
All
two years alter painting The Cry, the
dour Norwegian
Edvard Munch made
linear interpretation ol the picture in the
over Europe huge armies were massing, and ingenious
lithograph above. In this black-and-white
weaponry pointed
to dreadful conflicts that
could not long be delayed.
version, the scream seems to ring across the sk) in ripples ol
Strikes, assassinations, popular uprisings, political scandals like the
Dreyfus
artist
to
\flair,
plots
to
overthrow long-petrified regimes
pointed to a society divided against against poor, free-thinker against
itself:
man
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
all
these
Christian against Jew, rich
concerned
schematic sound. Intensely
\uili social
problems, with the
alienation ol the indi\ idual and w
anxieties ol
modern
I
lie.
ing of
all
life
what he had demanded only for
the old windows, even
For many young
nowhere was
artists this
if
we
feelings in a
si
\
le
known
as Expressionism.
that an art based
Germany, where the military machine
its
Under such conditions, the free
man was by
quite right-
best to suppress ar-
independence. The director of the National Gallery
dismissed, for instance, for
man
felt,
on a questioning attitude could prove inconvenient
in other spheres as well, and the government did tistic
-"a break-
cut our fingers on the glass."
was already tuning up for murder. German officialdom ly,
art
escape from the past was not easy, and
this truer than in
in Berlin
was
buying too many modern French paintings.
free expression
definition a
meant violent expression, and
hunted man
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; a position that most Ger-
painters were quite incapable of dealing with.
Painting ranked high in
German
the
other
northern European painters revealed their
of faith, old against young, sol-
dier against civilian. Gauguin, dying in 1903, just missed witnessing in
every department of
itli
Munch and
national
life,
but
it
was painting of
a
kind that depended on anecdote. Germans liked pictures of well-kept
53
a
fishermen mending their nets, of soldiers relaxing with nursemaids over
communion, of lambs satisfy what the German
art
"the heavily oppressed
in-
a glass of beer, of preparations for a first
springtime in the Tyrol. For deeper fare, to
Wilhelm Worringer referred
historian
ner
life
to as
Germans turned
of northern humanity,"
in
and novels,
to poetry
and the opera house. Painting was society's accomplice,
to the theater
and society did not was a kind of
let
painters forget
What
it.
this attitude
1900 by a very
art described in
Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, after a
to a
visit
Munich
produced
young man,
idealistic
"The
art exhibit.
paintings were as depressing as the public's indifference," wrote Kirch-
"Outside there was the flood of
ner.
color,
all
life,
Why
gladness. Inside, these pale, lifeless daubs.
gentlemen paint
sunshine,
all
all
don't the worthy
real life?"
Five years later Kirchner and three of his friends decided to do something about
it.
Kirchner was then an architectural student
and of the four crusaders Rottluff and Fritz
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
in
Dresden,
the others were Erich Meckel, Karl Schmidt-
Bleyl-he was the only one with any formal
art
education. Nevertheless, banding together as Die Briicke, "the bridge," the four
men
set
one of the most beautiful But
life.
it
was
much
art, ic
in
They worked models their
Dres-
1905, and partly from primitive African and Polynesian
museum. Disdaining first
rejected as ignored.
streets, using their friends as
They took Van Gogh, whose work they had seen at a
of which there were
held their
for disquiet. Kirch-
a handful of sympathizers for support.
inspiration partly from
den exhibit
the time was
at
with a very lively cultural
which there was no place
empty shops on out-of-the-way
and relying on
Dresden
art.
cities in the world,
a culture in
ner and his friends were not so in
German
out to redeem
some superb examples ties
all
exhibit in the
in the local
ethnograph-
with the conventional art world, they
showroom
T
he Briicke believed not only
in a
of a suburban lamp factory.
new
but in a
art,
new
society.
It
stood for candor and truth in personal relationships, for the straight-
forward portrayal of social reality, for absolute faith
"We
against their titled and bemedalled elders.
sake," wrote one of ple's sake."
young people
want
for a sense of relaxed well-being,
Where
Matisse aimed
Kirchner and his friends were out
shock and provoke. Their candid portraits show people half-dressed poses
make the viewer
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; pulling
feel like
air are identifiable
of acts even
art for peo-
Using the same palette of pure unmixed colors that Matisse
used, they achieved a completely different result.
open
as
don't want art for art's
"We
spokesmen, Iwan Goll.
its
in
at a garter,
in
to
awkward,
sprawled across a bed
an intruder. Their groups of nudes
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; that in the
people undressed in public and are suggestive
more abhorrent
to public order.
South Sea islanders, who belong Briicke nudes are ordinary
Unlike Gauguin's naked
to a distant
and doomed culture, the
Germans taking
off their clothes in con-
servative Saxony. In this act of social sabotage, color was
once more the great hench-
man: the Brucke's colors were high and strong, subject matter.
vard
54
Munch
is
"May God said to
as aggressive as their
protect us! Bad times are on the way!" Ed-
have exclaimed when he
first
saw a collection of
one of
their lithographs. Kirchner, painting
his lady friends lying
on
her stomach, her backside as blue as a baboon's, might well have been
echoing one of the Briicke's favorite authors, Friedrich Nietzsche.
"Anyone who wishes and destroy
to be creative,"
in his diary that
is
the ideas
people whose color sense operated in a
Russia, above
A
commonly generated by yellow, orange and And in spite of 19th Century Europe's gen-
brownish, spinachy-green narrative paintings, there
eral preference for
apply.
blast
not in itself subversive. Delacroix had observed
red were "joy and plenty."
still
first
social values."
all
Yet strong color
were
wrote Nietzsche, "must
all,
much
higher key. In
Western ideas of nuance and subtlety simply did not
five-minute walk through the Kremlin reveals on every hand a
color sense that
is
direct
and full-hearted. The buildings of the Kremlin
are alive with color, inside and out, and that color
is
used with ex-
BRUCJ€i909
traordinary freedom and assurance. Sooner or later Russian painters,
conscientiously imitating the subdued palette of bygone French and Italian painting,
cestral attitude
I
he Russian
painter
to realize that their strength lay in this an-
toward color.
who
was Wassily Kandinsky, a
got the point soonest
who had embarked on
in his life
meant
were bound
his painting career at
than Matisse. Until well into adult
to be a lawyer.
Not
until
1896,
life
an even
later point
Kandinsky, too, had
when he was
offered a law pro-
fessorship in a provincial university, did he finally realize that painting
was
his true profession.
went
off to
Munich
Turning down the academic
to study art.
dinsky looked and acted professions. as clean
He was
all
post,
Kandinsky
Despite this change in careers, Kan-
his
a
like
life
member
of the learned
precise and sober in his dress and kept his studio
and neat as an operating room. He was widely read and could
on many subjects
talk with authority
Schmidt -RotTLul
— music,
anthropology, the nat-
ural sciences, comparative religion, literature in several languages
and
Ernst Ludwig Kirchner. a founder of the
Dresden arhsis group Die Briicke (The Bridge),
made this woodcut
liner
a portfolio
ill
As early as 1889, on
a trip to the
provinces to collect information on
Russian peasant law, Kandinsky had been struck by the intensity peasants' untutored color sense. All around
him he saw houses,
of the
another founding member. In 1906. a year
group was formed, Schmidt-Rottluff
stated their aim:
"To
attract all revolutionary
and fermenting elements, that implied
in
the
name
'Briicke.
clothes,
furniture and furnishings so richly ornamented that everything seemed
When
to dissolve in color.
ancestral tradition.
One
he himself began
to paint,
he drew upon this
of his early paintings, a scene evocative of me-
dieval Russia. The Motley Life (page 67),
is
an attempt
to use color with
the same vigor and freedom and purity that he had found in folk
He
also assigned certain
to refer to the
meanings
to colors
art.
— much as Old Russia liked
"raspberry note" of the small bells worn by horses. Red,
for instance, in
Kandinsky's mind stood for "purposeful power,"
yel-
low for uncontrollable aggression and "absolute green" was supremely
— the silence of emptiness awaiting fulfillment: black was also a symbol of silence — but of another and
restful.
more
White was
a
symbol of silence
final sort.
Unlike the Briicke, which fought isolation,
its
battles at
home and
largely in
surrounded by a hostile society, Kandinsky traveled widely
and was a true cosmopolitan. He was as much
at
home
in Paris
I909forthe
and an etching by Karl Schmidt-Rottluff,
after the
the theater.
in
containing lithographs
and Mu-
55
is
the purpose
knew what was going on
nich as he was in his native Russia, and he
erywhere
world of
in the
U hat
art.
1
set
him
apart
was his entirely original color sense, and eventually
moved with him
Kandinsky came face
nich,
so strongly in themselves
ter of the picture did not
anything,
in
Mu-
he had
colors, in the twilight, spoke to
its
and
matter
the stronger for
all
home
to his
to face in his studio with a painting
moment
recently completed. For a
him
work independently of the object
was associated. Returning one evening
it
this color sense
Kandinsky, around 1908, discovered
into abstract art.
quite by accident that color could
with which
ev-
from other painters
for themselves that the subject mat-
— and the impact of the picture was,
it.
From
he inferred that
this
it
if
might be
possible to dispense with subject matter entirely, and that the result
might be
But
it
gain and no loss.
all
took him several years to work this out. Kandinsky had pre-
viously used color in a straightforward, descriptive way, to heighten the emotional content of a particular scene
—
to evoke, for instance, the
Now
pageantry of the Middle Ages or the blazing sun of North Africa. he began to use color to express his
own
states of mind.
Instead of
choosing the contents of his pictures, he stood aside and allowed those contents to choose
£'*>;k'
brought
him,
from the unconscious. The
in
forms and colors that were meant predictable specific
opening himself
deliberately
way
to act
result
to
^imagery
was a combination of
upon the observer
— since each form and color had for
in a logical,
Kandinsky
a very
meaning.
^er
I f those
forms and colors sometimes reflected the
Kandinsky's own unconscious, this was a ignored. Pure abstract painting was born in
in
German)
1910 with this completely npnobjective
watercolor by the Russian-born
\\ assil)
Kandinsky. True to his theory thai |im\ ule direct
communicat
ion
The cannons
30 -Cannon could
be explained, he said, "by the continual talk of war that has been going on.
Kandinsky was no
ement of mysticism
tool
in his
about world
make-up, and
affairs despite a
like
strong
el-
every other intelligent Eu-
ropean he saw disaster coming. The cannons, the churches blasting fragments of landscape lying about, were
painter and viewer, with no preconceived
like rockets, the
of a world in dissolution. Yet the painting
epoch-making watercolor untitled.
he neither stressed nor
lact
that crept into Improvisation
language of imagery to encumber the left
world as well as
should
art
between
spontaneous freedom. Kandinsk)
real
artist's
this
solutely firm.
"Make
it,
expressive is
ab-
and indeed the corners are pinned down as
firmly as those of a big circus tent.
Above
to create a sense of absolute stability.
speaks of another world, one that
lies
all,
the colors work together
Through
color,
the painting
beyond the petty concerns of men
that will outlast them.
Kandinsky believed that in
all
as a composition,
sure the corners are heavy," Kandinsky told
himself as he painted
—one
itself,
off
it
was the
artist's role
"to speak of mystery
terms of mystery," and to help "suffering, searching, tormented
souls" discover their ture. This
was
common bond
a far cry
from the
with animate and inanimate na-
social realism of the Briicke.
even further removed from Matisse's
artistic
concerns.
Kandinsky's credo must have seemed pure dementia he have had
much sympathy
Yet curiously
it
was
— but
for the Briicke's wish to
to Matisse that
To
It
was
Matisse,
neither can
change society.
both Kandinsky and the Briicke
often looked for leadership.
His attraction was not his reputation for wildness. Indeed Kandinsky
56
and the Briicke must have known, as most painters did on even the slightest
acquaintance with Matisse, that the label "wild beast" was
ill-
man by
his
deserved. Rather, they were drawn to this entirely rational
more
calculated use of color, a color
more ingenious and
intense,
less
dependent upon everyday experience than anything painters had hitherto been able to manage. Matisse in effect had brought electricity to a civilization based
on candles.
For Matisse, however, this great service to
was no more than
art
a
passing phase, immensely invigorating but limited. Fauve painting was
and Matisse was
a sprinter's painting, later
and without regret of
down
my
of
his
a long-distance runner.
Fauve period
"when
as a time
He spoke
the noting
immediate and superficial color sensations was enough for
me." Fauve color belonged
to a certain
moment and
moment
that
could
not be prolonged.
T.he Salon d'Automne tisse
of 1905 had scarcely closed
began work on a very large canvas
in
the magic. Joy oj Life ( study on page 82) the 20th Century.
the future course of his career.
summer
is
dream of a
is
only part of
one of the great paintings of
It is
in Collioure, but
life
as well as about Matisse
it
secret garden free
and
from
a picture that derives directly
also has to do with ideas that had
haunted the European imagination for centuries age-old
doors when Ma-
looks both forward and backward, and says things
It
about art and the hidden energies of
Matisse's
its
which Fauvism
from
guilt
— ideas relating
to the
and worldly care.
Matisse took enormous trouble with the painting. First he sketched a
remembered clearing
in the
woods near Collioure, which had
view of the sea. Then he did a great the open
air,
many drawings
a distant
of a naked model in
remembering the look of Collioure fishermen dancing on
the shore, but also remembering the way Greek vase-painters treated
human
the
figure.
memory
of
the Island of
La
tackled the problem of composing these
el-
For his reclining figures, he turned to his
Seurat's languorous Parisians in
Grande
Jatte.
And when he
Sunday Afternoon on
ements into a coherent whole, he remembered the bacchanals of a long succession of European painters, running from Bellini and Titian,
through Rubens and Poussin,
to
Watteau and
Ingres.
Yet most people, seeing the Joy of Life for the Salon des Independants, thought ing ever ries
willfully original
done before. Matisse had treated the
of stage
making
it
flats,
— suggested
in
time
at
the 1906
— unlike any paint-
trees as
and the carefree people
love, playing the pipes
first
if
they were a
the scene
se-
— dancing,
the characters in a tradi-
tional classic ballet. But within the tradition, there
were some very odd
The serpentine woman twined with ivy looked more like an Art Nouveau lampstand than
at
things.
a
the extreme
human
left
being; the
couple making love in the foreground seemed to have, between them, only one head.
Some
of the people were impossibly large by the normal
standards of perspective, and others were impossibly small.
Joy of Life initiated a Its
lot
of things, both for Matisse and for others.
sinuous, sculptural poses became standard
umental
figures,
and
its
forerunner of Matisse's
vigorous
among
sculptors of
mon-
round dance was obviously the
own famous
Dancers, completed
some four
57
more general terms, Joy of Life declared Matisse's intention of being accepted as a painter on his own terms and on no one else's. Having examined most of the great art of the past, he knew that years later. In
many
of
themes were worth keeping, but he also knew that they
its
could not be treated in the same way. Similarly, he knew that Fauve color, for
striking effects, did not allow
all its
things he wanted to say. Joy of Life
is
not color used to intensify action
it is
him
complex
to say the
a masterpiece of lyrical color, but
—
it is
the action.
The dancing
fig-
ures, the lovers locked in
emblematic embrace, the musicians playing
on their pipes are no more
alive
than statues.
It is
the color that trans-
ports the viewer into another world. set such great store by Joy of Life that it was his only entry 1906 Salon des Independants, but the audience, far from sharing
Matisse in the
enthusiasm for
his
result of long
clearly erotic, but it
seem
it,
was dumbfounded. The painting was clearly the
and patient labor, but what did
at all to
it
mean?
Its
subject was
Nor
did not seem to aim at sexual provocation.
it
be a criticism of
life
or society, though
it
did
did hint an
who attempted such subjects. It was Matisse's own arguments for what he
oblique criticism of other painters
— — and
way profoundly polemical
in its
thought painting should be
like all
good polemics,
it
enraged a
lot
One of the people most enraged was Matisse's old friend Sigwho announced to one of his disciples that Matisse had "gone com-
of people. nac,
pletely to the dogs. He's taken a canvas eight feet long,
some odd characters with whole thing with disgust
flat,
a line as thick as
well-defined color areas, which, pure as they are,
me."
F
ortunately there was one person
up
to.
surrounded
your thumb and covered the
The
who understood what
Matisse was
poet Guillaume Apollinaire was Matisse's exact opposite-
impulsive where Matisse was measured and cautious, extravagantly social dio,
where Matisse begrudged every moment spent away from the
stu-
adventurous where Matisse double-checked every new move.
Apollinaire was one of the most irresistible personalities of the cen-
He also happened to love painting, and he wrote a great deal about What he wrote was not always well-founded (Braque once said that
tury. it.
Apollinaire could not
Rembrandt from Rubens), but people read
tell
him simply because he was Apollinaire. Also, he moved among painters as an artist
among
and so they spoke
artists,
to
him
freely
and
in full
confidence. Consequently, his articles were often a very good guide to
how
painters really
felt.
Apollinaire often talked with Matisse
membered
his
appetite for preserved ginger
—
children long
home and his and defended him when most
presence
roly-poly
— Matisse's
in
re-
insatiable
their
of the art
world was anxious to look the other way. Critics complained, he wrote, that
Fauve was "too mild for Matisse, that Fauvissime, 'wildest of wild
beasts,'
would be better," but the truth was
novator, as he certainly
is,
that "if Matisse
an
is
he renovates more than he innovates."
in-
Then
he would go on to woo his readers toward Matisse with references to the painter's solid family
dame Matisse ("the
58
life,
to the quality of the food served
family table, without being lavish,
is
by Ma-
delicious"),
brought back from Collioure.
to the excellence of Matisse's liqueurs,
Apollinaire was the all
made
work together. Questioned about
to
had
that the artist entirely,
He had
and that
was above
is
mortal,** he said,
way
it
upon
personality and rely
it
done through introspection alone.
to pit himself against the giants of the past,
collapses, then that's the
first
Matisse told Apollinaire
this,
own inmost
to find his
this could not be
rectly. "If the fight ist
to say in print that Matisse's art
first
an art of equilibrium, in which instinct and acquired knowledge were
confront them
"and the personality of the
has to
di-
art-
be." Apollinaire was also the
forms
to report in print the full extent of Matisse's interest in other
of art: "the hieratic art of the Egyptians, the refined Greek art, the vo-
luptuous Cambodians, the work of the ancient Peruvians and the African tribal statues, proportioned according to the passions that pro-
voked them."
Through
people became genuinely interested in Ma-
Apollinaire,
\
tisse's ideas,
and
in
1908 the magazine La Grande Revue invited him to
speak for himself. The article,
Russian. At a
was
in art,
paint a picture,
I
became an imme-
is
not a matter
face or revealed by a violent gesture.
every detail
is
expressive.
The
cupied by figures or objects, the empty spaces around proportions, everything plays a part." Impressionists,
violence
Matisse disposed of Expressionist ideas
human
its
whose work was
still
He was
place oc-
them, the
equally short with the
a living issue for the public.
its
appearance.
I
.
.
prefer to discover
.
its
"A mo-
rapid rendering of a landscape," he wrote, "represents only one
ment of
N-
once into German and
at
"To my mind," he wrote, "expression
in a line or two.
of passion mirrored on the
When
Painter's Notes,"
moment when Expressionism was rampant and
everywhere
visible
"A
and was translated almost
diate sensation
2 r
more enduring char-
acter and content, even at the risk of sacrificing
some of
more
its
pleasing qualities." As for the color theories of Signac and his friends,
shown the door: "When I choose a color it is cause of any scientific theory. It comes from observation, from
these too were
from the innermost nature of the experience
in
Ipollinaire, Rouveyre,
rhis L950 lithograph, Matisse,
is
Matisse's tribute to two of his early
admirers and friends. The poet-critic
not be-
Guillaume Vpollinaire
feeling,
public
weakened
question."
( top, left),
the hr>t
champion of Matisse's work, had l>\
war wounds,
in
the 1918
died.
flu
epidemic. Andre Rouveyre. a writer and
M
caricaturist
who
south of France,
latisse
was against violent expression, against the rendering
gitive impressions, against all
ol fu-
forms of pseudoscientific doctrine. He
Matisse,
when
shared the artist's love of the still
lived in
Vence, near
the lithograph was made.
Matisse inscribed the triple portrait "To friendship"' in a curlvcued border, like an
wanted
an
a considered art,
art of serenity
essential had been pared away, an art of
from which everything non-
which he himself was
master. "I cannot copy nature like a servant. ture must submit herself
to
I
in the truest
"We
share
its
He was
moment. But he
opinions,
its
"We
belong to our time," he wrote.
preferences and
its
delusions. All artists
bear the mark of their time, and the great artists are the ones in that
mark
lies
deepest." And Matisse knew, though he did not
the great artist himself,
who
is
the one
it
who
whom
say, that
takes the whole burden of his time
upon
paints not for color's sake, or for heaven's sake, or for
pity's sake, but for his
lived with
a
sense a revolutionary. For mere imitators of the
he had nothing but disdain.
past
to be the
interpret nature, and na-
the spirit of the picture."
conservative, then, rejecting the painting styles of the
was also
entrv in a 19th Century allium of mementos.
own
sake. Matisse accepted that burden,
and proved himself
and
right.
59
I,he pictures are a
riot
shadows green, the
tree trunks red.
of color; the sky
more than 60 years, the viewer
is
is
cream, the
Even today, after
jolted by the
power of
their colors
and
When such
paintings were exhibited at the Salon
d'Automne
in 1905,
is dist
urbinglv pleased by their effect.
The "Wild Beasts"
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; but not
Parisians too were shocked
with pleasure. So aggressively irrational did the paintings
seem
that the painters
who had made them were
nicknamed fames, or "wild beasts."
Ironically, the leader
of the "wild beasts" was the sober Matisse.
Why did Matisse, who was such a careful observer, deliberately ignore the colors of nature for these aberrant
hues? To Matisse and the Fauves color served to transmit the artist's intense feeling for his subject color stood for ;
the emotion of the artist as he went about his work. Matisse's pictures were
shown very early
in
Germany,
where painters were already trying techniques that would jog traditional
German art out
In Dresden and
Munich
of its representational rut.
particularly, daring
young men
This l\
light
pical
and
lyrical
scene
is
a
Fauve painting by Matisse.
The brushwork
is
quick, the colors
audacious; the carefree gaiety of a
used bold, abstract color to express themselves and thus
earned their name, "Expressionists."
Charming
Both the Expressionists of Germany and the Fauves of France were indebted to Van Gogh, Gauguin and Cezanne; both movements at their most intense were short lived,
burning out quickly
like bursts
from
a
Roman candle. But
Matisse remained a Fauve in principle for the rest of his
days
60
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; color conveyed his emotion.
summer day today,
it
is
unmistakable.
as this painting
was attacked
in
seems
1905 with
the other Fauve paintings by one critic as
"the barbaric and naive
sport of a child
who
plays with the
box of colors he just got as a Christmas present." The Open U union. 1905
61
Madame
he I he
Matisse ("The Green Line"
time the three leading Fauves
first
Derain and Maurice de Vlaminck
Van Gogh exhibition
in 1901.
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
).
toward Fauvism through study and experimentation.
was
Derain's friend, Vlaminck, was the opposite: a wildly
Van Gogh was an
at a
inspiration
way
in
Dutchman had before. Van Gogh
order to express myself powerfully," the
some
15 years
had been dead almost a dozen years, but the Fauves, ;h
their work, proved to be kindred spirits. e
and Derain had been acquainted for a couple of
year
\
62
sre serious students of art
Portrait of Matisse,
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; Matisse, Andre
got together
to all three. "1 use color in a completely arbitrary
written to his brother
Andre Derain:
1905
who were working
impulsive artist
who made
his paintings
coals. Matisse described his
Van Gogh show
company his
of an
enthusiasm
Derain was a
in this
way: "I saw Derain
enormous young in a
like red-hot
in
.
.
.1 still
of him. But he admired
the
think
him
for his
enthusiasm and his passion."
Whatever
at
the
who proclaimed
fellow
voice of authority.
bit afraid
glow
meeting with Vlaminck
their personality differences, the three
1905
Maurice de Vlaminck:
arrived
at
Portrait oj Derain,
Fauvism almost simultaneously, but
individually. Vlaminck's stvle portrait of Derain (above,
left
).
was crude, as
is
Andre Derain:
1905
is
seen in his
more
in his portrait
hand, as
weighty, the mustache wanders offthe face, the skin tone
nicknamed "The Green
and background
first
one section are nearly
identical.
Derain's portrait of Vlaminck (above, right ) shows a lighter,
more
Vlaminck
s,
delicate touch.
The
colors are softer than
the brushstrokes finer; the ambiance, from
the cocked bowler hat to the cheery yellow background.
of Matisse (opposite
Of all the Fauves, however, Matisse had
the canvas, laid on in heavy smears; the eyelids are
in
it
I
laminck, 1905
sophisticated. Derain's fine sensitivities are also
manifest
The paints are thick on
Portrait of
is
owned
j.
the surest
seen by his portrait of his wife (opposite),
it.
from being
The green lost in
Line"' by the
Michael Steins,
splits the face in relief
who
and saves
the forceful background. Here
Matisse has used one of his favorite devices: he
made the
background so strong that the subject must emerge on own. The result
is
a study of imposed
harmony.
63
its
Andre Derain:
V
laminck and Derain, although of vastly different
temperaments,
fitted
They worked together
what had been a decrepit old restaurant
bent. to
in
Chatou, a suburb of Paris. They consorted with bums, ars
and prostitutes, and they took a vain pride
physical strength, frequently interrupting
strenuous bike rides and rowing races.
work
in their
"We were not
bohemian-,"' Vlaminck said, referring to himself and
He became
real
belong."
increasingly conservative, often trying
match himself against the masters and
"The
failing.
greatest danger in art
knowledge," he
said.
But
guided by a sure sense of
for
We didn't
lew of Collioure, 1905
Derain's work suffered from his excessively intellectual
the popular notion of the artist as a
rather disreputable bohemian. briefly in
Derain. "Just nonconformists.
I
When
work
too
at his best, his light,
he worked with Matisse
(above), his
is
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
in his
touch was true,
movement and at
mind
much beauty.
Collioure in 1905
reflected their shared belief that painting
Maurice de Vlaminck: Landscape with Red
should always be pleasing to the eye.
Unlike Derain, Vlaminck never compared his talent with past masters.
He was
a blatant self-promoter
who
took keen pleasure in giving art history broad swipes with the back of his hand. "Visiting personality, just as lose
museums bastardizes the
hobnobbing with
your faith," he once
priests
said. Striking
out
makes you
at his
canvases, he worked in furious bursts, often spreading the oil
paint
on
directly
from the tubes, as had Van Gogh. His
talents were many-sided. A pugnacious giant, Vlaminck was an accomplished musician and writer. And he was also an anarchist who worked off his hatred of the social
establishment through his
art.
which drained
off the evil in
have achieved
in social context
have tried to express use
my destructive
sensitive, living
in art
"Painting was an abscess
me," he
said.
"What
I
by throwing a bomb.
Thus
I
.
have been able
instincts in order to re-create a
and
could
free world."
65
.1
to
Trees,
1906
w.
hile the
Fauves
set Paris in
an uproar, the
Expressionists were trying to inflame not only the
German One
art world, but their entire repressive, rigid society.
school, Die Briicke, or
"The Bridge"
(to
the future),
established a studio in a former butcher's shop in
Dresden, where work and talk went on
all
night,
and
The two models and artists paintings on this page by Kirchner and Heckel show this enjoyed a communal
life.
passion for freedom and spontaneity. Another school of Expressionists was formed in
(The Blue Rider), a name
Munich
as
Der Blaue Reiter
coined by two of
its
leaders,
Wassily Kandinsky and Franz Marc. Kandinsky, a Russian expatriate and former professor, often painted fond
memories of his homeland, using color
to
convey
spiritual longing (opposite page). Similarly, the
Marc used
color, shape
and rhythm
his
German
to dramatize the
integration of all creatures in nature. Ernst Ludwig Kirchner: Blue
Nude
with Straw Hat, 1908
Erich Heckel: At the Pond
â&#x20AC;˘
in the
U
ood, 1910
Wassily Kandinsky: The Motley
Life, 1907
Franz Marc: The \ellow Cow, 1911
67
68
.
IV An Audience from Abroad
Matisse in his late 30s was not rich in the way that young painters are often rich today, but there was a
moment when it was clear that The moment came
with reasonable luck he would never be poor again.
sometime between March 1906 and February 1907. On the former date the art dealer Theodore Druet offered
55 pictures
tisse sent
studio er,
when
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
all
him
a
one-man show,
On
which Ma-
came straight back to his new young art deal-
but a few of which
the show closed.
to
the latter date a
D.-H. Kahnweiler, arrived in Paris from
Germany and was quickly
able to corral such painters as Derain, Vlaminck, Braque and Picasso.
But Kahnweiler never approached Matisse because, he said, Matisse
"was already too
big for
me." Somewhere along the
line in the in-
tervening 10 months, Matisse had changed from an unsalable firebrand to a
man
group of
of substance. solid, serious,
With one exception Frenchman cialist
He had acquired what
painters
dream
of: a
durable patrons. all
of these patrons were foreigners.
to see the point of
politician
all
The only
Matisse was Marcel Sembat, the So-
who represented Montmartre
in
the
Chamber
of
Deputies. Sembat had begun to collect Matisse's paintings in the early
davs of Fauvism, and never
Sembat published the
first
lost his
monograph on Matisse, and
erous bequest to the Grenoble
French museums
Among
Museum
Matisse expressed the
the
warm
felt in
\
colors of this
there.
Lush and
in the
bow
I
is
vvilli
still life
painted during his second
by a scattering
of green leaves, while the flowered tablecloth and colorful background
suppl) a touch of gaiel
in
1922 his gen-
20 years ahead
ot
other
Matisse's foreign patrons, the honor of being
who bought
first
usually
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
oman with the Hat re$100 putedly for around from the Salon d'Automne and carried it off to the apartment they shared at 27 Rue de Fleurus. Matisse was im//
pressed by their faith. French feeling against the picture ran so hot and
visit
inviting, the fruit
set off
it
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
isual
Morocco
put
in the possession of Matisse paintings.
goes to Leo and Gertrude Stein,
excitement he
admiration for his work. In 1920
strong
at
the time that he had forbidden
Madame
Matisse to go to the
Salon, and Matisse himself went only once. But the Steins were not or-
dinary patrons. By French standards they were naive, but they also
had a fearless and articulate preference for the new. They were eager
)
to learn but also innately self-confident. Oranges, 1912
Leo and Gertrude Stein were the children and grandchildren of Amer-
69
TT
i%*€<d*j*>'
=m^
<~
ts***-'
A
ica's robust,
sketch and color notes for the painting
Oranges appear ahove on the fragment letter
Matisse sent to Michael Stein
Apparently Matisse was not yet
in
of a
but in the
1912.
satisfied
w
analysis they thought their judgment as good as
last
ith
the design and was trying out an idea on his friend.
mid- 19th Century expansionism. Sensitive they might be,
They had money
else's.
For the finished work (see page 68 for fruit and flowered
comparison ), he kept the
y^
*Th^£zdy
04
— not
a lot, but
enough
— from
anyone
family-owned
clothing stores in Baltimore and Pittsburgh, and from holdings in the
Omnibus Cable Company
of San Francisco and the Central Pacific Rail-
road. In Baltimore they had
made
their
mark
as cultivated people, but
tablecloth essentially the same, but broke the original
background elements into a greater
variety of horizontal, vertical and oblique lines
and colors, and replaced the stripes
below the cloth with solid red and purple.
collection during
World War
II.
enter the
fused to
field,
a flunked course given by a professor art to
for a time
I
Tatti
who bored
re-
her.
was collecting material
Mantegna, a project he abandoned only when he realized
that he preferred esthetics to history. After Harvard, ciple of
med-
dared to
spend every vacation from Harvard tour-
worlds great museums, and
for a life of
woman
a rare
and had missed out on her diploma only because she
make up
Leo cared enough about ing the
a serious student of
Johns Hopkins
icine at
Picasso bought the Matisse painting for his
own
knew how to work. Gertrude had been at a time when only
they also
Bernard Berenson, and was often
at
Leo became
a dis-
Berenson's Florentine
villa,
— although Berenson sometimes found Leo's earnest scholarship
tiresome (Leo, he once said, "was always inventing the umbrella").
As children, the Steins had been inseparable their attraction for each other as "the family
soon became the center of the bohemian
— Leo
once referred
to
romance." In Paris they
art world.
Even
in that
world
they were a funny pair. Leo, with his unceasing flow of talk, his pre-
sumed wealth,
his bald
head and superabundant beard, his corduroy
pants and "bacchic" sandals, struck the French as a mysterious, contradictory figure. Gertrude was even odder: a squat, thick-set, pear-
shaped young
woman
with a monumental head and a capacity for saying
things that mattered in a very few words. At the time, however, no one
took the future author of some immensely influential poetry and prose
Among
his
who were many, and his amours, who were hardly less man who would achieve great things only he could make up his mind what he wanted to do.
nu-
to
be a near-genius.
It
was Leo who
friends,
merous, Leo was known as a
70
set the intellectual pace.
—
if
Leo's letters reveal him as vain, touch) ertheless he was
briefly,
according
and self-important.
to art historian Alfred Barr,
the world's most discerning collector of 20th Century
art.
Nev-
perhaps
Between
1905, when he and Gertrude bought oman with the I hit. and 1909, when he tired of the game. Leo put together a superb collection of modern painting. Berthe Weill knew him well Leo referred to her as "the funny little squinting near-sighted old lady who sympathized with rev//
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
olutionaries, good, bad and indifferent"
Weill that he came to buv
II
oman
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; and
it
was through Berthe
him
with the Hat. Berthe Weill told
of Matisse's chagrin over the picture's reception. ""Matisse had thought that this time he had played the ace of
parently
would take nothing." He and Gertrude went
it
ture in the Salon, got over
was what
trumps," Leo wrote, "and ap-
its
to look at the pic-
strangeness and decided to buy
it.
"It
had unknowingly been waiting for," he wrote.
I
Having bought the painting, they soon arranged
to
meet the
artist,
and Leo. who knew an intellectual when he saw one, was delighted. Matisse's
with
mind was
whom
like the well-stocked,
the Steins had associated in Baltimore. "Matisse was really
intelligent." he noted.
actly
well-ordered minds of the people
"He was
also witty,
and capable of saying ex-
what he meant about art." At a time when most Frenchmen thought
of Matisse as
someone who
just
splashed paint around, Leo Stein got
the point of Matisse's working methods: ligent, in his
way he is as
positions are
full,
persistent as
"He
complete, veritable pictorial
rarely finds." Before long Matisse paintings
another
at
II
oman
intuitive,
with the
I
finalities
he
is
his best
intel-
com-
such as one
were hanging one on top of
27 Rue de Fleurus. The Steins bought
passion, and in bulk:
Hlac \ude
is
Cezanne himself; and
hit in
freely, out of
1905, Joy
genuine
oj Life in
1906.
in 1907.
Matisse was glad to have such firm support, but he was not bowled
Paintings by Cezanne, Matisse. Renoir and
Picasso
jammed
salon on I
ri 'tilt 1
)
I
lie
the walls of Gertrude Stein's
line de Fleurus.
and her
life-long
Here Miss Stein
companion Alice
B.
Toklas. often seated in this fireplace corner of the room, held court for favored artists.
was
It
here, in fact, that Certrude once gave a
luncheon
lor
all
the living painters
work she owned, taking delight
man
opposite his
own
picture.
whose
in seating
No one
each
noticed
the arrangement except the alert Matisse,
who
was annoyed rather than pleased. According to
Miss Stein, he later upbraided her laughingly,
-a\ ing,
"Mademoiselle Gertrude, the world
a theater for
theaters, and
me and I
when you
so attentively
say then
I
is
you. but there are theaters and listen so carefully to
and do not hear a word
do say you are very wicked." Most
likely Matisse
was put out because Picasso
was replacing him
in
Miss Stein
71
s
favor.
over by
Leo himself once observed that "Matisse has always been a
it.
very good businessman, and
why
not?
We
did not
buy
his paintings be-
cause of his beautiful eyes, but because we were interested
was doing.
.
.
."
what he
in
Perhaps Matisse sensed that the interest would fade,
Leo was by nature giddy and unfocused and that Gertrude,
that
though vastly more stable, had no
real feeling for art. In
tain that the person he liked best in the Stein family
Stein, the wife of their older brother.
chael Stein's
skill as
any case
was Mrs. Michael
was primarily thanks
It
al-
cer-
it is
to Mi-
an investor that Leo and Gertrude did not have to
bother about money. And it was Michael's wife Sarah who very soon came Matisse's most staunch and loyal admirer.
I
he Michael Steins lived on Rue
Madame
in a
modest apartment
be-
that
had none of the panache of the bohemian establishment on Rue de Fleu-
But though Matisse was always made much of when he visited Leo
rus.
and Gertrude, he was
Michael Steins. Sarah
a great deal happier at the
Stein was an impulsive, affectionate
young woman who had once
and Matisse thought her a person of exceptional
ied painting,
stud-
finesse
and discernment: "Mrs. Michael Stein," he wrote many years
"was the
member
really intelligently sensitive
after the self-important posturing that
later,
of the family." Also,
was de rigueur on Rue de Fleu-
He Rue Madame to talk with Sarah with them he could speak freely, without
he found Sarah's unspoiled girlish ways a pleasant contrast.
rus,
got into the habit of going regularly to
and her husband, feeling that
danger of having his confidences bruited
The ^^'fMr\ n
fullest
and funniest but not the most
riod in Matisse's life
The charcoal sketch above
is
a stud) b)
Matisse for his portrait of Michael Slein's
the Stein family. Sarah was responsible for
the
first
sale of a Matisse to
an art collector
America. She bought \udeina H
New York
friend George Of,
in
works, the States,
him
home
first
in 1906.
Matisses to
Of asked Sarah
to
the
Impressed by these
come
buy
to the
sight unseen; she fulfilled the
commission on her return
United
a Matisse for
Toklas
— ostensibly the in
1907, to
memoir
become her
describes
it
published in 1933), the Autobiography contains errors of
and
affection.
Leo Stein called
it
of
life-
was
(it
taste
fact,
"a rather clever superstructure on a
more
stupidity." Georges Braque was
blunt.
"Miss Stein," he wrote, "understood nothing of what went on around
Matisse pictures she had brought with her on a quick trip
lice B.
account of this pe-
reliable
Gertrude Stein's light-hearted
in
youngwoman who joined Gertrude
basis of impenetrable
»««/ for a
who had seen
I
over town.
long companion. Written long after the events
wife, Sarah (page 82), the artist's favorite of all
found
to be
is
book. The Autobiography oj the wispy
all
her.
.
.
.
She never went beyond the
for publication that a harlequin's
much
costume
.
.
stage of the tourist." Matisse said
of the book was sheer invention, .
sewn together without
lation to reality." In private he
taste
"more
and without
like re-
went much further; Gertrude Stein, he
to France.
said,
was a "king-sized blockhead."
The book's references
to Matisse are indeed often disparaging.
At
one point, speaking of her cook, Helene, Miss Stein wrote, "Helene had her opinions; she did not for instance
man should
like Matisse.
She
not stay unexpectedly to a meal particularly
said a French-
if
he asked the
servant beforehand what there was for dinner. She said that foreigners
had a perfect right
when Miss
this evening, she
72
do these things but not a Frenchman.
would
fry the eggs.
It
butter but
shows
No one
to
Stein said to her, Monsieur Matisse
it
takes the
say, in that case
will
not
... So
staying for dinner
make an omelet but
same number of eggs and the same amount of
less respect,
likes to be
I
is
made fun
and he
will
understand."
of in print, and
Frenchmen
are espe-
cially
incensed by the jibes of foreigners: the privileged entering French
life is
not one that
is
expected to be abused. But there
is
a further pos-
reason for Matisse's annoyance with The Autobiography of Alice
sible
Gertrude Stein makes
B. Toklas.
it
quite clear that in her view the one
painter worth bothering about in the Paris of her youth was a
young
Spaniard just starting to make his way Pablo Picasso. :
Matisse and Picasso met
this
the Steins in the
at
companion
Olivier, Picasso's
at
meeting "Matisse was very
much master
ways rather sullen and restrained shone." Matisse had reason to ing, all.
Joy of
Life,
fall
of 1906. Fernande
the time, says in her memoirs that
at
of himself. Picasso was
such times, and
feel superior.
it
at al-
was Matisse who
His most important paint-
dominated the Steins' drawing room and he was,
Picasso's senior by 12 years; Picasso was then only 25. But
it
after
was a
known Leo and Gertrude Stein for alcompleted his monumental portrait of Ger-
misleading beginning. Picasso had
most a year, and had already trude
— for which she
sat
and Picasso had achieved
more than 80 a
times. During those sittings she
genuine rapport, quite different from her
re-
lationship with Matisse. Picasso was mercurial, inquisitive, opportunistic, quite evidently a
and
his
man of genius;
Matisse, with his intrinsic reserve
measured way of speaking, was not. Gertrude Stein was not pro-
foundly committed to painting as painting, but she was committed to exceptional
human
Picasso was
The
fact
at
beings.
recognized, from the very start, that
the very top of that class.
that Matisse
traordinary than
it
and Picasso had not met before
might seem. Picasso lived and worked
and seldom came down to
And she
its hills
to Paris proper; Matisse
in
is
less ex-
Montmartre
never went up
£S»SaSE£osTALi
Montmartre. Neither man went out for the sake of going out, but a pa-
tron, especially a foreign
patron, had certain claims on a painter.
*/•<-..
HlokJifor
Gertrude Stein had no particular trouble getting Matisse and Picasso DluJd<z/te/i> into her
house
ess could have
were never
at
the same time, but
done
it
it
is
doubtful that any other host-
with such ease thereafter. Matisse and Picasso
rivals in the
commonplace
sense, but neither were they
close friends. Each recognized the other as a
supreme professional.
Pi-
In lQl
Matisse was anxious about The
l
Painter's
Family (page 87),
his
work
in
when he sent the postcard above to Michael Stem in San Francisco. "'It is well progress
under way." he wrote
in the note,
sketch of the painting. ".
uncertain of
its
.
.
but
I
above a
am
success." Genuinely fond of
Michael Stein and his wife. Matisse did portraits of
82).
them both
The photograph
work on Michael's austere portrait.
in Paris in
at left
1910 (page
shows Matisse
larger than life-size,
More conventional than
most of Matisse's portraits of the time, the picture perhaps reflects the deep personal
esteem the painter had for his subject.
73
at
casso once spoke of Matisse and himself as the "North Pole and South
Pole" of
art
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; meaning no
doubt that
in
temperament they could not
have been further apart, but also meaning that they functioned as land-
6^5p
marks, without which the At the time of their
tween their
of
modern
art did not
make
sense.
meeting there was no direct
first
parallel be-
Picasso was just emerging from his Blue and
activities.
Rose Period canvases
map
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; delicious,
romantic visions that stayed within
Soon he would begin
the bounds of everyday experience. ism, a kind of painting that
seemed
to
many
to
develop Cub-
people more radical and
more promising than anything Matisse had put forward. The color olution pioneered by Matisse was a revolution of feeling;
rev-
empowered
it
new directness and candor. The Cubism pioneered by Picasso was a revolution in construction. While Matisse moved toward a two-dimensional art conceived in flat areas of painters to express themselves with a
pure color, Picasso was giving the world a new idea of the third
mension. The two were going
would have been unnatural
v
as an artist,
in
completely opposite directions. Yet
diit
for Picasso not to wish to overtake Matisse
and equally unnatural
for Matisse not to regard this with
something more than mere curiosity. Miss Etta Cone (above) and her Claribel
Cone (belou
),
collectors ol 43 Matisse paintings. great learning
Shortly after meeting Matisse, Picasso
sister, Dr.
Women
of
a" ivignon, a
and outstanding individuality,
like faces they also had their eccenl
ric side.
was
on her comforl and
said to be so insistent
privacy that,
when World War
I
canvas dominated by
massive female nudes with mask-
five
and angular bodies. The origins of
broke out
this painting are
complex, but unquestionably Matisse was, Picasso's
mind from time
to time
when he
immensely
rather than risk having to share crowded
accommodations during the return home. The idious Miss Etta once typed a complete letter by letter
one way or another, on
in
did
it.
With
his genius for
fastening upon things that could be of use to him, Picasso had re-
remain there through the war-lorn years
Gertrude Stein manuscript
is
Dr. Claribel
while she was visiting Germany, she chose to
last
about painting what
set
probably the most famous picture of this century, Les Demoiselles
were perceptive
cently fastened on African ter of controversy.
sculpture for Picasso
came about
this
shown
time, and no doubt had
when Picasso came
is still
a mat-
however, had been collecting African
Matisse,
some
how
art. Just
to call
on him
at
his collection to
his apartment.
Picasso
since, having failed to a^k permission to read
the book, she did not feel that take notice of the words.
it
was
lilting to
also
had before him during
of Life,
which hung
in
had masterfully
tisse
this period the
example of Matisse's Joy
27 Rue de Fleurus, a painting
summed up
all
which Ma-
in
his preoccupations
to
date.
It
cannot be pure coincidence that almost immediately Picasso began to paint a
comparably ambitious picture. Finally, there
between the seated figure
lation
figure in
A,
in
is
a direct
re-
Picasso's painting and a seated
Cezanne's Bathers, a painting then owned by Matisse.
kfter
the appearance of Les Demoiselles a" Avignon, a well-judged
wariness marked the two painters' personal relations, even though they
continued to see each other socially. There was a period, for instance,
when Matisse took
Picasso riding with him, and, wittingly or not, set a
pace that invariably
left
the nonriding Picasso
has been made of the fact that
stiff
and
when they exchanged
sore.
And much
paintings, neither
gave the other his best work. Nevertheless, after the end of World
War
II,
when
the two were
more or
less
neighbors in the south of
France, they drew closer together. Matisse presented Picasso with the
dove that served as model for his famous peace poster, and with the striped Melanesian idol that confronted visitors to Picasso's villa in the late 1950s. Picasso,
74
who
values few persons' opinions, often invited Ma-
work
tisse to look at his
home, Picasso hired
— and
when Matisse became
and took
a truck
them
the aged master could examine
remarked
tisse died, a friend
"vou
see
I he he
I
have
to paint for
ill
to leave
Not long after Ma-
at his leisure.
to Picasso
fluence of Matisse in one of his
too
his paintings to Matisse so that
on what seemed
new canvases. "Ah
him the
to
in-
yes,'" said Picasso,
both of us now."
personal magnetism that so quickly attracted collectors to Pi-
casso was absent in Matisse. Every
new enthusiast
was a precious possession, and the year 1906 was memorable for quisition of two such patrons, the strong-minded dies, Dr. Claribel
work
for Matisse's
his ac-
American maiden
la-
and Miss Etta Cone. The Cones had been friends of
the Steins since Baltimore days, and like them were genuine cosmo-
They too had
politans.
a comfortable private
income
—
their case,
in
from cotton mills founded by their brothers with money borrowed from their father, a first-generation •Dr. Claribel
was one of the
German-Jewish immigrant.
Cone, even more drawn
woman
first
to
medicine than Gertrude Stein,
doctors in America. Just a few inches over
marked tendency
high, with large hands and feet and a
five feet
to
spread out below the waist, she cut an even stranger figure than her friend. Paradoxically,
however, Dr. Claribel had a great sense of
She invariably wore black, but she fancied putting
them together
in
style.
theatrical accessories, often
combinations that stopped just short of the
ri-
diculous. At the opera she would appear with silver skewers from India in
her hair, massive Renaissance jewelry upon her bosom, mountains
of shawls from Spain and the Orient draped over her shoulders. Dr. Claribel
had a
lot to say,
most of
worth hearing, and a voice that compelled
it
attention. Miss Etta, her sister,
was equally firm
in
her opinions,
much
a person she was gentle and withdrawn and
though as
al-
less
extravagant in her costume. Their qualities as art collectors are manifested in the
Cone Collection of the Baltimore Museum, but
human
ities as
their qual-
beings were just as remarkable: as patrons, the Cones
were constant, honorable and open-minded,. Matisse met the Cones
in
January 1906, when they were taken
call
on him by Mrs. Michael Stein. They bought
ing
and
and Gertrude Stein, who
And
When
Blue
ibel paid
later
unloaded their Matisses, the Cones held
unlike other Matisse collectors,
his prices rose, they
who dropped
out
when
continued to bid for his work on the open market.
\urfe, for instance,
$6,000 for
once, for $20, a draw-
and they went on buying for 30 years. Unlike Leo
a watercolor,
onto theirs.
at
to
it
was auctioned
in Paris in
1926. Dr. Clar-
— then a substantial sum.
Matisse repaid the Cones" loyalty with the deep but undemonstrative affection that he reserved for people
who
in his eyes
themselves. This trusted circle was not large, and speaking.
It
much
had really proved of
it
was English-
included the English art critics Roger Fry and Give Bell,
the English writer Matthew Stewart Prichard, and the American archeologist
Thomas
W
hittemore, best
known
for his
the splendid mosaics in St. Sophia in Istanbul.
Matisse's Terrace, St.-Tropez in 1909 and presented lector Isabella Stewart Gardner,
who turned
work
in
uncovering
W hittemore it
to
purchased
Boston
art col-
her home, Fenway Court,
75
.
museum â&#x20AC;&#x201D; making
into a
Terrace. St.-Tropez the
Matisse painting to
first
museum.
enter an American
whom
But the patron on
Matisse leaned most heavily was without a
doubt Mrs. Michael Stein. After 1907, when Leo Stein began to weary of Matisse, and Gertrude Stein
came more and more
to prefer Picasso,
Sarah Stein emerged as the member of the family most to be trusted.
was Sarah who took the
San Francisco and started
tinent to
It
Matisse painting across the American con-
first
vogue for Matisse collecting
a
in Cal-
This happened in 1906, after the San Francisco earthquake,
ifornia.
when she and her husband went home
Among
real estate holdings.
for a while to attend to their
her converts on this trip were Harriet
Lane Levy, whose Matisse collection seum, and Miss Levy's gnomelike
is
little
now
San Francisco Mu-
in the
friend Alice B. Toklas,
timately followed the Steins to Paris and joined the
who
ul-
menage of Gertrude.
Sarah Stein was also responsible for the short-lived but immensely successful Academie Matisse. She had long been in the habit of showing Matisse her
own
paintings for correction and, in her typically warm-
hearted way, could not resist sharing the privilege. First she invited the
German
Hans Purrmann
painter
to join her.
Then, when
of other people expressed a wish to learn from Matisse at
a
number
first
hand,
she proposed starting a private art school. Matisse was of two minds The
sporty trio hoisting steins of beer
in
Munich
in
German
painter Albert Weisgerber, center,
and.
at left.
1910 are Matisse,
right, the
Hans Purrmann. whose 1953
self-
One of Matisse's most champions, Purrmann helped organi/e
portrait appears below.
ardent
Matisse's art school in Paris and was
"student manager";
in his
he arranged Matisse's
first
native
its
Berlin, acted as Matisse's agent u ith
collectors, wrote a series of
in
by his would-be students* enthusiasm,
and he remembered what Gustave Moreau's classes had meant But he also feared that
work ful
Germany,
one-man show
He was touched
about the project.
a
at a crucial
it
moment
in his career.
to him.
his
own
Ever since the close of the
fate-
would take time and energy from
Salon d'Automne of 1905, Matisse had been struggling to assimilate
number
lems
new experiences. Never one
of unrelated
lightly,
to treat
such prob-
he was finding himself from time to time in serious trouble.
German
memoirs about
the painter and successfully guided Matisse
through three tours of German)
In the winter of 1905-1906, Matisse had gone and elsewhere, the inhabitants had
light,
made
worked Blue
in the
following winter
into a finished painting, the
it
was shown
\utlc
on him. He had noted
a deep impression
and then
briefly in sketches,
At Biskra
to Algeria.
the color and the relaxed beauty of the local
at
this
Collioure had
famous Blur Vude.
When
Independants of
the Salon des
caused another terrible furor. There
at
the
1907.
certainly something disturbing
is
about the brutish, chunky, naked model, reclining, haunch high air, in
one of Matisse's favorite poses.
it
It is
a northern
nude
in
in a south-
ern setting: northern for the uncompromising directness of the modeling, the
determination to get
may seem; southern
and the vibrancy of the color But Blue
\ title is
the truth no matter
at
for the pink shade in the
is
his desire to
model as
it
two different and con-
solidly as possible, to
dimensional character of the subject
at
Matisse,
flattens
On
the one hand
emphasize the three-
hand; on the other hand there
his preoccupation with light, the intense
es color,
it
shadows.
also disturbing because in
tradictory sides of Matisse were struggling for mastery.
there
how ugly
on the spreading palm leaves
North African
form and reduces everything
who always weighed every move
to
is
light that bleach-
two dimensions.
carefully before committing
himself, was eddying back and forth between the sculptural and the
76
decorative, the real and the imagined, the direct and the fabricated.
Around first
Matisse was digesting the impressions of his
this time, too,
journev
to Italy. In the
summer of
1907, he and
Madame
Matisse
vis-
Venice, Florence, Padua and Siena. Matisse had no particular
ited
High Renaissance;
affection for the
Italian art, as
he saw
was going
it.
downhill by the time Leonardo and Michelangelo came to maturity. But he did delight
in
the earlier Italian painters
was
del la Francesca. Matisse
far too
complex
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;Giotto,
Duccio, Piero
man
show any im-
a
to
mediate influence from this Italian journey, but his reactions were
more intense than those and
art critic
tisse
of
an ordinary visitor. The American
Walter Pach, who met Matisse
wrote that Ma-
in Italy,
returned from a day in Arezzo "with enough admiration for the perPiero della Francesca to
fect art of
T,he lowed
last a lifetime."
third crucial event for Matisse during this period was precipitated
by the death of Cezanne,
1906, and the two memorial shows that
in
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; an exhibition of 79 watercolors
at
fol-
the Bernheim-Jeune Gallery
June 1907. and a group of 48 paintings
in
artist
1907 Salon d'Au-
in the
tomne. Matisse, who had revered Cezanne for more than a decade,
must have watched with some ists
that
came
more and more
irritation as
to share his enthusiasm.
youtiii art-
Not only did they appear
to think
no one had noticed Cezanne before, but they tended to ignore the
Cezanne
side of
that
most attracted Matisse. While the younger
artists
admired those facets of Cezanne's work that foreshadowed Cubism his injunction, for instance, to "see in nature the cylinder, the sphere,
the cone" â&#x20AC;&#x201D;Matisse respected Cezanne for the mastery of his "constructions after nature." Every part jo( a Cezanne painting was as
important as every other part; nothing was extraneous. ity
convinced Matisse
that
that
Fauvism. with
It
was
this qual-
unpremeditated
its
procedures, was simply not capable of earning the weight of thought
and feeling that he wanted
to put into his pictures.
one mon-
In 1907 Matisse decided to put everything he had into
umental picture, which he called Blue not so
much
in size (its
ness and complexity of
zanne on
a
a table,
intentions.
and bottles and
It
was
agery.
a peach,
He covered
in effect
The subject was one often
jugs. But
Matisse
filled
treated by
his
offset the
full-
to Ce-
Cezanne
bunched
in
arrangement of
off the table; a still-life
up
the
in
an homage
where Cezanne usually
canvas open, usinga plain wooden tabletop to
onion or
picture was big
aslant the field of vision; a tablecloth,
deep folds and lving half on, half fruits
The
dimensions are 35 by 45 inches) as its
very grand scale.
somewhat
Still Life.
left
much
of his
noble forms of an
whole picture with emphatic im-
his table with a heavily figured cloth
and
set
it
against
a wallpaper printed with bouquets of flowers; instead of limiting his fruits to a few perfect
specimens, he scattered apples, oranges and lemons across
the table in rich profusion.
Blue
Still Life,
while
it
paid
homage
to
Cezanne,
at
the same time
looked back across Cezanne nearlv 300 years, to the Dutch painters of the
17th
Century.
understood Matisse's impulse
to
Jan
Davidz.
de
still-life
Heem would
heap the plate high,
to
fill
vas with succulent objects and rich patterns and textures.
have
the can-
De Heem
77
was said
to
have moved from Utrecht
Antwerp markets contained ness to draw from
.
as
Paris to get hetter Cornice pears-- the mar-
good
sistently set a very high value
ist
any
as
But he did con-
in the world.
upon the appearance of the things he
when he was
and flowers than he could of his favorite
condition and state of ripe-
fruit "in finer
.
any case are
painted. In the days
solely hecause the
."
life.
moved from
Matisse never kets there in
Antwerp
to
poor, he often spent
really afford.
more on
And he always took
fruits
loving care
objects, even when they were only trumpery tour-
still life
souvenirs. His motives could be mistaken for sentiment, except that
Matisse himself, as
it
happens,
pleting Blue Still Life.
set the
"To copy the
record straight shortly after com-
objects in a
still life,"
he said, "is
nothing.
The
awake
in
him: the emotion of the ensemble, the inter-relation of the ob-
jects,
the specific character of each object,
painter must strive to render the emotion that the objects
must be touched by the
and by the generous volume of this copper
He was
speaking
demie Matisse had Stein guaranteed the
Rue de
at
interlaced.
.
.
.
You
pot.""
The Aca-
the time to the students of his school.
finally got
it
all
tearlike quality of this slender, big-bellied vase
in the early months of 1908. Michael room was found in a former convent on
going
financially,
Sevres, the Couvent des Oiseaux, and a large and motley
group of students soon formed. Altogether, during the three years the school lasted,
it
was attended by nearly 120 people, only four of
were French. The
rest
whom
were Swedes, Poles, Norwegians, Germans, Hun-
garians, Americans, Englishmen, an Icelander
and
a Japanese.
Some
of
—
made names for themselves Max Weber and Patrick Henry Bruceamongthe Americans, Bela Czobel among the Hungarians, Matthew Smith among the British. Most of them, however, were people of no particular gifts who would never make a go of it as painters but them
To the surprise
of the students
Vcademie Matisse, "the king beasts" insisted on
approach
to art,
would be better human beings for having
the
academic discipline ul
tin'
I sculpting from a live model above).
"Note the
(
;
the) musl exisl in
complete work, otherw
ise
you have
concept on the way," he told
photograph of
I
hem.
a sculpture class,
and Hans Purrmann,
l\\
I
lost
In-
your
the studio and the model, and the certainty of a weekly correction
from Matisse. Correction day was Saturday, but Matisse also dropped in
during the week when he
In this
Sarah Stein
o co-founders oi
I
he
school, stand beside Matisse as he criticizes
the work of a student.
or something under two dollars a week, the students got the use of
foreground,
essential characterisl ics "I
the model carefull)
tried.
oi the « ild
a serious,
including
ai
later
formal arrangement rections
— because
became too
— and
it
felt like
it
And
to
preferred this
disengage himself
a bother in
number of students increased so move almost at once to larger quarters
for the
He
in-
in fact refused to accept a fee for his cor-
would allow him
great a bother.
or had time.
one sense
it
if
the school
soon became,
rapidly that the school had to
—
in
another former convent,
the Sacre-Coeur, on the Boulevard des Invalides.
Many
of the students, knowing Matisse only through his work, ex-
pected to find that they could do just what they liked in his classes. the very
first
On
morning, for instance, they welcomed him by festooning
the classroom with canvases daubed in the loudest, strongest colors their palettes. Matisse, walking in, exclaimed,
"What's
all
on
this rubbish?
down at once!" Then he put them through a series of academic exercises that must have made some of them wish they were back in the Beaux-Arts. He insisted on exact measurements, and on the use of the ruler and the plumb line. He forbade them to use color loosely, with-
Take
78
it
out regard for other colors. At correction time he could be terrifying:
"They it
took
got to be as all
week
for
meek
as lambs every Saturday," he said later,
me
persuade them to be lions again."
to
Matisse did not believe that art could be made easy.
worked 12 hours
He had always
day himself, and he knew of no other way to take
a
When
art seriously.
"and
he spoke to his students, every word carried the
weight of years and years of meditation. Sarah Stein's classroom notes are a uniquely revealing record of
how he saw
never go wild," he would say, "Every line must have .
."
.
Or
again, "Everything
must
his task. "Lines
must be constructed
— built
its
function.
up of parts
to
make a unit: a tree like a human body, a human body like a cathedral." He advised them to study their subject closely, and then to allow their own feelings to take over: "Close your eyes and hold the vision," he told them, "and then go to work with your own sensibility." Time and again he pointed out to parallels:
"The
pelvis
on one occasion.
said
semblance of
them the kinship between forms, the unexpected into the thighs
fits
On
and suggests an amphora," he
another, he asked them to notice "the
this calf to a beautiful vase," or again, to
"remark the
re-
full-
ness and olivelike quality of this upper arm."
Matisse learned as
The
pils.
much from his
teaching experience as any of his pu-
necessity of putting his thoughts into words, clearly and
succinctly, was invaluable to him. In 1908 he carried this process one step further by putting his ideas into writing, in an article for the mag-
From
azine La Grande Revue.
this article,
from Sarah Steins classroom notes,
is
it
"A
Painter's Notes," and
possible to see into Matisse's
mind, to understand the very structure of his thoughts: alyzed a figure, broke
it
down
into
its
parts and then built
it
how he anup; how he
strove to get beyond the initial excitement of painting and enter into the serene state of ject.
pose in
mind
that
comes with complete mastery of
To Matisse, the whole point of a work of art was its power to imitself upon the viewer's imagination: "When I look at the frescoes
Padua," he wrote, "I do not bother
life
of Christ
I
have before me.
the feeling which
A
ls
for his
renity.
"What
own I
I
art,
The
to recognize
title
is
an
picture. It's
art of
all
there, in line, in
would convey a sense of
it
se-
equilibrium," he wrote, "of pu-
of tranquility; an art free from disquieting or bothersome subject
rity,
matter, an art which will calm and soothe the
head, be he businessman or
to
in the
brings nothing but confirmation."
Matisse hoped
dream of
which scene
simply understand, without hesitation,
comes out of the
color, in the composition.
ical
a sub-
man
of letters."
change the world
Some
—
to the evangel-
out
— Matisse's aims can be made to seem shallow
and
painters
people said that Matisse was simply out to relax the at
What he had
cocktail time.
was considerably more profound.
W hen r
in
an image of
man
at
mind, how-
Matisse spoke of an "art
of equilibrium," he envisioned an art that evoked an ideal dition,
with his
who were
Chairman of the Board ever,
Compared
Munch
aims of Gauguin or Van Gogh or
frivolous.
man who works
one with himself and
at
one with
human
In the years immediately before 1914, Matisse achieved this aim
neither art
nor people's concept of
art
con-
his society.
— and
has been quite the same since.
79
lodayall loc
it
takes to buy a Matisse
Sixty-odd years ago
it
is
a lot of money.
was not wealth that was needed so
much as courage, faith
in the
new and a bit
of artistic
Collectors
clairvoyance. In the early 1900s. such qualities were
almost nonexistent
owners,
The Brave
among French collectors and gallery
who considered Matisse a misguided radical,
hardly a good investment. At his few exhibitions his paintings were jeered at for their implausible colors, two-
dimensional quality and primitive design; practically none
were bought. Fortunately for Matisse not everyone shared this disdain.
Amongthe young artists gathered
a powerful guiding force,
and
this
band of collectors
he was
enthusiasm
communicated itself to a small, and unlikely,
in Paris
in
many ways
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; predominantly American
and Russian. They bought his art, giving him not only the
money he so desperately needed but lift
also the psychological
of outside encouragement. These brave foreigners
were cultured
This rugged self-portrait, painted
men and women who enjoyed the
by Matisse
stimulation of avant-garde Paris.
They all had
independent means and purchased contemporary '"amateurs," in the best sense of the word.
when he was
bought by two of art as
Though they
American
37, was
his most faithful
collectors, Michael
and
Sarah Stein. Enchanted with his
and impressed by
his
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; $100 or so for a painting that might now bring hundreds of thousands of dollars â&#x20AC;&#x201D; they
art,
bought from Matisse because they liked and believed
school, which she helped to run
paid incredibly low prices
in
him. They are remembered today as the hardy pioneers
who first appreciated the genius of a modern
80
master.
articulateness, Sarah Stein
persuaded Matisse to open a
for about three years.
Self-Portrait,
L906
81
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
N
lo
American collectors did more
to
advance the early fortunes of Matisse
than a family of eccentric, ruggedly individualistic expatriates, the Steins elder brother Michael, his wife Sarah, brother Leo and sister Gertrude. At a
time
when Matisse was being
reviled by the
French public, the Stein clan
bought many paintings, including the ones shown here; and through the Steins, Matisse met other patrons. tellectuals
more Michael Stein
who encouraged
retiring, genteel
Leo and Gertrude were flamboyant
writers, poets
and painters. But
Michael and Sarah that Matisse
felt
it
in-
was with the
most comfortable.
Stimh Stem
Joy of Life (study), 1905
82
Music (sketch), L907
83
I.
'
hree of Matisse's early backers were American
spinsters
who met him through
the Steins. Claribel
of Baltimore was strong-willed, one of the
America and
to graduate
a friend, Harriet
more moderate. But
first
from medical school. Her
Cone
women
Lane Levy of San Francisco, were all
three were devoted to Matisse,
buying from him confidently and ultimately enriching their Harriet Levy
Dr. Claribel Cone
Etta
hometown museums with
their fine collections.
Cone
Girl with Green Eyes,
84
in
sister Etta,
1909
The Pewter Jug, 1916-1917
85
A
Russian textile importer with a passionate
with daring
modern
some of his
abjured work of Matisse. Indeed, so eager was he
largest early sales
and several
born to a very wealthy, art-buying family
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; his
four brothers had built a fine collection of old masters. But Sergei had an eye for the different. I.
Moscow were covered
craving for modern art provided Matisse with
important commissions. Sergei Shchukin was
Sergei
palace in
The
walls of his 18th
new and
Century rococo
art,
and he was not afraid
for Matisse's pictures that
them even before the
to
buy the
he sometimes claimed
paint was dry. But the
prescience that led Shchukin to collect Matisses
won him
little
respect in the art world: in Paris
he was snidely branded "the mad Russian."
Shchukin
Harmony
in
Red. 1908-1909
1
l/«,/«w
l/«//.v.s<>.
1913
7/ic Painter's
Family, 191
Conversation. 1909
87
s,
'hchukin
fell
so in love with Matisse's art that in 1909
he commissioned two giant canvases, Music and Dance (below).
Each was about 12
feet
long and was intended to
startled the artist
setting
sun made
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; as it
it
seem
hung
in his studio the rays of the
to quiver.
He had gone all
out to
intensify his color, saying later that he had aimed at "the
decorate a landing along the stairway in the importer's
bluest of blues for the sky, the greenest of greens for the
Moscow home. As the theme for Dance, Matisse returned to his monumental Joy of Life, extracting a circle of gay
earth,
dancers from the background. For that scene and for this
(page 83). There, two of the listeners are so stirred by the
new work
the artist drew on his memories of the Catalan
dance-in-the-round called the sardana, which he had seen in
southern France. But while the sardana
mathematical
in its precision,
joyful exuberance.
Dance
is
is
intricate
Matisse invested
so vital that
it
it
with
repeatedly
and
and a vibrant vermilion
for the bodies."
For Music, Matisse also went back to an earlier work
music that they have begun dancing. Here, however, he emphasized their rapt concentration, their absorption
in
private thoughts. Stillness has replaced action, creating a
sharp counterpoint to the frenzy of Dance. In these works, Matisse's drawing
is
deliberately simple,
unencumbered by perspective.
He
traditional
modeling and tricks of
said of these paintings,
"We are moving
toward serenity by simplifying ideas and
whole
is
to be
figures.
The
our only ideal."
Matisse eventually traveled to
Moscow
to
hang these
pictures in Shchukin's palace, where thev remained until
the Soviet revolution engulfed Russia in 1917. Shchukin
escaped to France, but
all
ironically, Soviet Russia,
abstract art,
Today,
became heir
in the
his art
was confiscated. And
which
officially
to
some of the
frowns on
best Matisses.
Hermitage Museum, Dance and Music are
displayed in the perspective duplicated below.
Dance and Music. 1910
89
Bathers
l>\
a River,
16- 19 17
1<)
D
"uring the time that Matisse was being discovered by
foreign collectors, he painted
some
pictures that he did not
sell.
He did not even exhibit the two paintings shown here until many years after he had completed them. Although he never explained why he held them back, it may have been that Matisse wanted, or needed, to keep them because each represented a significant experience in his
life.
Both pictures were finished while Europe was deeply ,
embroiled
World War
in
I,
and
art life as
had been known
it
ceased to exist. Exhibitions were few. French collectors fewer still,
and Matisse's contacts with
and more was able
difficult to
work
to
maintain.
his foreign patrons
were more
Under these circumstances, he
for several years
on paintings that were both
too large and too difficult for any existing market. Bathers by a River (above)
is
just
under 13
feet long. It
may have been
partly
Cezanne painting of a similar subject that Matisse
inspired by a
had owned for many years, but just as
likely
it
relates to the
landscape of North Africa, a pleasant reminiscence of the the artist had
made
earlier.
The sword-edged
visits
foliage, the intense
contrasts of light and shade and the cryptic and potentially
dangerous snake
recall the
ways. The Moroccans right (
African environment in subtle )
is
a
more
direct
evocation of the colorful land that he had his visits in
work he had upper
left,
and beguiling
come
to love
during
1912 and 1913. The painting, the most abstract yet done,
is
composed
in
three sections:
terrace with potted flowers; below
.
fat
the
at
beneath a typically North African skyline,
is
melons droop on
a leafy
vines; at the right, a few robed Moroccans, as solid as
architecture, are crouching.
The
painting requires study to
appreciate everything Matisse has put into
When
to describe this painting of
of
it
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; and
left
asked to explain, however, he said only: "l find
my expression
90
mine with words.
It is
out. it
difficult
the beginning
with color, with blacks and their contrasts."
ft-
J
The Moroccans, 1916
91
92
V The Ideal
Patron
By 1909 Matisse had an assured market utation that was growing steadily
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
for his pictures
at least
(French enthusiasm for his work, when expressed short of signing a check.)
He had
number
his friendship with the
ot his paintings
German
stopped well
at all,
he had a one-man show.
trude Stein wrote that his
Among
those
winter of 1908-1909.
in the
who knew
his
German
Thomas Whittemore,
seen."'
pupils sent
work, Matisse,
him cases
fine black police dog, the first of the
wreath
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;a
oi
Rhine wine
breed that any of us
the American archeologist, marked
the opening of the Cassirer show in Berlin by sending rel
a
then pushing 40, was regarded as the major painter of the day. Ger-
and "a very had
his school;
Hans Purrmann
painter
had found their way into German collections
and into Berlin's Gassirer Gallery where,
just
a rep-
the lively support of a group of open-
minded Americans; Scandinavians by the score attended and through
and
outside his native France.
him
a gigantic lau-
gesture to which Matisse responded characteristically.
"But I'm not dead yet," he
said.
Meanwhile, Madame Matisse appro-
priated the red ribbon from the wreath for her daughters hair and
used some of the laurel leaves to flavor the soup.
With
some Of he man) I
a view
interior scenes with
through an open w
that Matisse painted,
ln^
I
mdow is
one
of the finest. Painted from his in
documents Matisse's
lamination with the brilliant
Mediterranean contrasts
it
light
to live, as
were now
and the sharp
and interior w
alls
was finding
it
more and more
were, over the shop. Although his
one of the grandest houses
in Paris, the
home and
that his teaching obligations, real or imagined,
irk-
studio
former convent of
the Sacre Coeur. the fact of having his school so near
ing on his mind.
work, and
window
are black, while
the painters beloved violin glows
in the
He began summer
to look
around
for
of 1909 he found
Issy-les-Moulineaux,
villa at
center of Paris, but
produces. Against the
dazzling sea. the shuttered
in
it
at
hand meant
were continually prey-
room
the Hotel Beau-Rivage in Nice,
the picture
this increasing notice Matisse
now only
another place to it.
live
and
The new home was
a
15 minutes by taxi from the
then completely countrified. The house was a
square, two-storied affair that sat in a large garden with a pond, a hot-
house and some serpentine paths between neatly trimmed patches of lawn.
It
had a view over woodlands and orchards of apple and pearâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;
like a jewel in il^ blue-lined case.
and Interior with
1918
a
I
iolin,
( I
)I7-
it
had a bathroom, a touch of modernity that Gertrude Stein
claimed the Matisses learned to appreciate only "from long contact with Americans," although she hastened to add that the Matisses had
93
"
always been ''scrupulously neat and clean.'" In any case, the house was, and
still
is
today, a genuine
little
country house almost within
walking distance of the amenities of Paris. Matisse,
who
only
five
years before had been desperately poor, referred to this miniature estate as
One
"our
of the
Luxembourg.
little first
things Matisse ordered for Issy-les-Moulineaux was
a large prefabricated
shed to serve as a garden studio.
the suggestion of a
new American
Steichen, but the need for
it
friend, the
was created by
a
He bought
it
at
photographer Edward
commission from an-
other international acquaintance, the Russian collector Sergei Shchukin. \\ ithin a short
of
all
time Shchukin was to become the most important
Matisse's patrons.
He was
much
not
to look at. a small, rather
timorous man with a disproportionately large head and an expression that an
unkind friend called
the
Moscow mansion
of Sergei Shchukin,
one salon alone contained some 20 of the
part of the great 20th
as
it
was hung
in
rococo interior
Century
distressed other people as
much
as
it
hindered Shchukin. But he did
have three assets as a collector, two of them personal and the third an accident of environment. He had an infallible eve. and he was un-
this
"Matisse" room that appears below show
to talk to,
.''>.
major Matisse paintings that the ruli
merchant owned. The section of
much
meeting, for he was afflicted with a bad stammer that
at least at first Iii
Neither was he
piglike.
-
a
art colled
boundedly that
rich.
Perhaps more important, he belonged to a society
had no history
in
matters of
art.
Russia
in a
sense had leaped
the sumptuous 18th Centur)
ol
Shchukin's home
prerevolutionary Russia.
94
in
rectly
from medieval religious
art
to
18th Century realism
di-
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; mostly
on the orders of Peter the Great. Consequently when Shchukin began
to collect art. he did so without inbred prejudices or preconceptions.
For more than a decade before his meeting with Matisse, Shchukin
had been demonstrating the excellence of his eye. At
Frenchmen would
modern paintings
not have
time
a
when most was buying
as gifts, he
Gauguin, Cezanne and Renoir, and was even collecting such little-know artists as
Fdouard Vuillard, Odilon Redon and Henri Rousseau. No
one could sav where the money less
n
how much
of
for these
there was. But
it
it
purchases came from,
was known
still
Shchukin was
that
in
much in demand, And presumably he
the business of buying and selling things that were
from the best tea
to the
most sumptuous
textiles.
bought them cheap and sold them dear, for have no visible
T.he
appeared to
his fortune
limit.
thing Shchukin most enjoyed was to board the express train that
steamed majestically southwest from Moscow
to Paris,
and upon
He had
days later to head straight for the galleries.
rival several
^
it
ar-
a gen-
uine and private passion for pictures. For Leo Stein, a painting was an
excuse for an impromptu talk that would dience; for Shchukin. Sir
it
was an inspiration
Kenneth Clark once observed
ing for longer than
long as he had an au-
to silence
and concentration.
that few people could look at a paint-
took to peel an orange and eat
it
one of the few exceptions. He could look and go on getting more out of
To
last as
it;
Shchukin was
picture for hours on end
at a
it.
this natural love for painting,
Shchukin added enthusiasm and pur-
He was one of the leaders in a small wealthy Muscovites who wanted to see Moscow replace St. Pe-
pose derived from civic pride.
group of
tersburg as the cultural capital of Russia. Petersburg,
Moscow was
genteel St.
to
a rough, dirty, competitive city, a place for
doing business and making money. tation-European style of
Compared
life
It
was defiantly hostile
to the imi-
that flourished in St. Petersburg
to the
English gardens and governesses, the French food, the Germanic ear-
nestness in matters of education and
outward to its
to
Western Europe
own Eastern
for
its
art.
While
inspiration,
St.
Petersburg looked
Moscow looked inward and
tradition, to the folk art. the icons, the legends
lore of Russia itself.
Shchukin and the other members of what could be
Mus-
called the
covite Enlightenment set out to tap this tradition and produce an
Russian approach
to the arts.
Russian opera, no naturalistic Russian theater, no revolution sian stage design.
One
of their
Mamontov, singlehandedly the theater and painting.
workshop
number, the
and
his
crafts, financed a theater
ductions, underwrote the modernization of the
such great
Rus-
Savva
country estate into a
and commis-
sioned Russian artists to redesign the costumes and settings for
to its roster
in
railroad millionaire
affected the future of music, architecture,
Mamontov turned
for Russian arts
all-
Without them, there would have been no
artists as
its
pro-
Moscow opera and added
Feodor Chaliapin.
W
hen the Czar's
art
commissioners refused to show the work of a young Russian painter. Mikail
Vrubel, because he was "too
vilion just to
house
a
modern" Mamontov
built a special pa-
Vrubel exhibition.
Mamontov's motives were
largely altruistic.
He wanted
to raise pro-
95
fessional standards, heighten the general awareness of Russia's ancestral
make
energies and less
richer and
lile
comprehensive way,
in central
Moscow
was thrown open
who wanted came
more invigorating
for everyone. In a
was Shchukin's ambition
this
too. His
house
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; a brilliantly ornamented, quasi-Oriental mansion
to the public for
chamber music concerts, and anyone
to see his collection of paintings
was welcome. Those who
contemporary French
got a better idea of
than any
art
museum
could have given them. The 14 Gauguin paintings that hung in Shchukin's dining
anvwhere
room
in the
S,hchukin
are
still
world.
bought his
eral years later
the finest group of Gauguins, public or private,
met the
Matisse painting around 1904, and sev-
first
Leo and Gertrude Stein's. He was slow-
artist at
er than the Steins to appreciate the
soon overtook the Steins for Matisse at his tisse's
most
When
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; and indeed everyone else
radical. In this,
Western patrons, he
Western European
of
Fauve paintings, but he very
first
did not relate Matisse's
enthusiasm
work
to the traditions
In Russia those traditions did not apply.
art.
Matisse dropped modeling and perspective, Shchukin was not
fronted: the great Russian icon painters of the
When
had not bothered with them either. ings
in his
he had one advantage. Unlike Ma-
from
flat
1
lth
af-
and 15th Centuries
Matisse built up his paint-
areas of strong color. Shchukin rejoiced; the icon painters
had worked that way too. He rejoiced again, and for the same reason,
when Matisse embedded his human figures, mosaiclike, into their background. And when Matisse introduced elements of Islamic design into his
work, Shchukin got the point
have a natural
once, lor Russian and Islamic art
at
affinity.
Shchukin was the
ideal patron for Matisse
was
actly the right time. Matisse
just
"the period of new acquisitions.'"
embarking on what he was
It
and he appeared
at ex-
later called
his private phrase for the
new
experiences that were coming to him through travel and for the new
ways of expressing himself
that
were coming to him through years of
meditation. But the phrase could have applied equally well to acquisitions of quite another sort.
From being known
to the general public pri-
marily through abusive messages scrawled on Montmartre walls ("Matisse will drive
you crazy! Matisse
is
worse than absinthe!
"),
he was
suddenly being recognized as a much-debated but indispensable figure in the international art
Stieglitz Gallery in
He was
world.
New York
given a small show
early in 1908, and
at
the Alfred
around the same time
took part in a group show in London. In the spring of 1908 he con-
Moscow, and
tributed to an exhibition of recent French painting in
the winter of 1908-1909
came
his large
one-man show
lery in Berlin. His Scandinavian students in
Stockholm
in
mounted
at
a
in
the Cassirer Gal-
show of
his
work
1909 that reverberated through Scandinavia for more
than a decade. All this
sounds splendid, but
in fact
it
was
offset in
almost every case
by the hatred, envy and brutish indifference of officialdom, of the press
and even of fellow ing of his
show
in
artists.
When
promisingly hideous. The show
96
Matisse went to Berlin for the open-
the Cassirer Gallery, the experience was itself
was something of a
uncom-
fiasco; hostility
have another cracker-jack exhibition for
"I
you.
.
-
Drawings by Henri Matisse, the most
modern of the moderns
.
.
.Simply great
:
thus w rote the American photographer and aspiring painter
Edward Steichen
and mentor Alfred pioneer also a
I*******
*****
tf
kinds,
w
wj
and
ij.
_
most
to
-.how ol
On
all
on New York's Kifth
to introduce the
ol the great
sculptors. ,i
avant-garde art ol
ol
his gallery
Avenue was
us*. »»**
to his friend
New York. A
photography, Stieglitz was
ol artistic
champion
Stieglitz in
American public
modern painters and
April 6. 1Q08. Stieglitz opened
"Drawings, Lithographs,
Watercolors and Etchings by M. Henri
to
it
^>
<tiU
tiff
Matisse of Paris. of the painter
in
'
the
first
was so widespread that the paintings were taken down as soon as Mawas safely on
tisse
sociated with the
his
way home. Not one of the
modern movement
artists or critics as-
and Berlin had
its fair
share of
men — would come out for Matisse. Even the most favorable reended with the comment that the one response to all the pictures
such view
was "a huge, irrepressible impulse tisse,
Small wonder that Ma-
to laugh!"
walking the streets of Berlin,
felt
down and gobble him up. London and New York the reviews
as
the glowering fagades
if
might reach In
work were equally
of his
dis-
couraging, although he was spared the anguish of being there in person. In
London, the
critic for
The Burlington Magazine observed that "with
M. Matisse, motive and treatment
New York
for the
limbo of
artistic
critic
Mail wrote that Matisse's female figures
Evening
were "of an ugliness that seems
critic
and the
alike are infantile,"
to
condemn
this
mans
brain to the
degeneration." Even the most sophisticated American
of the day, James Gibbons llnneker, took issue with Matisse, de-
scribing his studies from the naked model as
"memoranda
of the gutter
and the brothel." And The Nations anonymous report from Paris on the 1908 Salon
d'Automne
called Matisse's paintings "direct insults to
the eye and understanding."
At this point, Matisse unexpectedly got support from the great pan-
jandrum of the Old Masters, the Berenson. Writing to The Vation
in
and historian Bernard
critic
art
response to
Berenson ob-
its article,
served that Matisse, far from being a
common
years of very earnest searching
found the great highroad
eled by least.
all
trav-
He
is
Indeed he
is
singularly like
its
them
in
every essential respect.
draftsman and a great designer. Of his color
ture to speak. Not that
still
last
at
a magnificent
derstand
at
fraud, had "after 20
the best masters of the visual arts for the last 60 centuries
failing to
it
displeases
charm
singularly uncertain of
me
at first; for
— we
far
from
color
is
it.
But
I
I
do not ven-
can better un-
something we
.
.
.
public exhibition
the United States.
are
are easily frightened by the slightest
divergence from the habitual."
97
Berenson was
about Matisse's use of color.
right
verge from the habitual, and
"new
to exploit his
more and more
did so
it
From memory
acquisitions.'"
away
instance, he had carried
a
worked
did indeed di-
North Africa, for
his travels in
of the effect of intense light on
color and volume. In Europe, where the light painters for centuries had
It
as Matisse learned
grudging and inconstant,
is
terms of volumes charted
in
mi-
in
nute detail by modeling and deep shadow. But in Africa the strong
light
volume and wiped out the subtle indentations of a brick
wall
flattened
or the folds of a garment.
one walks down the
olutely
V latisse was not the
first
completely to his
it
reproduce the color
use color 40, old
them
res-
painter to notice this, but he was the
first
own
loy-
it
of
plain, but all of
effects of the
ways that related
in
enough
as
He had
purposes.
Old Masters
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; tried, that
from
is,
to
But now he was
new phase. What he want-
to risk taking painting into a it
and
tried long
to universal experience.
ed to do was set color free, release list
them
North Af-
of brightly colored
flat.
to adapt ally to
street of a
itself into a series
some of them patterned, some
areas,
I
When
composes
rican city, the prospect
role as assistant
its
an equal partner. "Color was not given to us
in
and en-
order that we
should imitate Nature."" he told a friend. "It was given to us so that we can express our
He turies
also
own emotions.
wanted
to free art
from the subterfuge of perspective. For cen-
European painters had gone
to infinite (rouble to
public that a painting was a thing to look into, a
that existed in depth, just like the view outside a real
ers had not always worked
cave painting,
in
this
in
convince the
window on
a world
window. But
the panel paintings and frescoes of 12th and 13th Cen-
No one
tury Europe, this preoccupation with perspective did not exist.
had
down
in
spective is
impose the order of everyday experience upon the
tried to
and the curious thing
the picture
now
paint-
way. In Islamic art. in prehistoric
is
facts set
that while classical per-
looks dated and contrived, the earlier works do not. There
something
fresh,
spontaneous and timeless about a Persian miniature
or a Dordogne cave painting, or the altarpiece in a medieval cathedral.
A
when
painting,
all
is
said
don't
we admit
One of the mony in Red.
and done,
is
simply a
new paintings were
right, so it's flat," Matisse's
and
I
why
flat,
paintings in which he tried this new approach was Har-
a picture
whose musical
wanted
title
cannot have been wholly
to place those areas of
places his chords." Matisse, sician to
surface. "All
it?"
first
work with areas
cidental. "I wanted," Matisse said later, "to color,
flat
to say. "It's
who
know what he was
flat
of
acflat
color as a composer
played the violin, was enough of a mu-
talking about. Doubtless he had in
mind
the ease and assurance with which a great composer signals the change of
mood
in a
musical passage with just two or three chords. Music,
this respect,
moves more
other arts.
also
It
happens
idea of earthly paradise
swiftly
to be especially effective at
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; an
in
and strikes deeper than any of the
idea that also underlay
conjuring up the
many
of Matisse's
finest paintings.
Shchukin bought Harmony
98
in
Red
straight
from the studio, even
before
was exhibited.
it
was not red
at all.
probably settled on the
tisse
because
red.
is
lie
bought
it
dominant color
had been green. Ma-
particularly vibrant cherrj
final color, a
and well-being that he
vitality
convey. Fundamentally Harmony
to
reworking of a classic French theme
a
its
it,
an earlier stage
at
heightened the sense of
it
meant the pieture 86)
the time
\t
but blue, and
in
lied
vestiges of a good meal. Matisse himself had used this
last
Breton Serving Girl (page 2
least tw ice before, in
ner Table (pa^es
2
/-_'.">
1897.
in
)
Once
(page
the table containing the
1) in
1896 and
again there are
theme
at
The Din-
in
some half-emptied
carafes of wine, a chair or two, a servant bending over the table and a sug-
gestion of a landscape through an open window. is
Once
again the scene
pervaded by a sense of bourgeois comfort. People have
table
and have had
thundering good time, and now the servant
a
tongued and competent
Harmony
in
should be.
it
Harmony
to
Table used fine china and glass ful-
makes the point with an imperious,
all-
enveloping red. Indeed the painting seems this color.
On
much by
convey a sense of richness and earthly
lied
in
suggested not so
life is
Where The Dinner
things as by color.
and "period" chairs fillment.
just as
is
Red. the good
in
-quick-
the great tradition of French servantsâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; will
in
do the dishes. Everything But
sat at this
closer examination the sheet
at i-
first
a great
sheet of
flat
seen to fold where the
ta-
bletop meets the wall, and to fold a second time where the tablecloth falls
over the edge of the table. But Matisse has minimized these chang-
es in plane
by covering both the wall and the table with the same dec-
orative pattern.
and
its
that
is
It
is
basic motif
meant
a traditional
French pattern called
a basket of flowers
is
framed
to represent garlands of foliage
in a
de join.
a toile
serpentine line
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; but could just as well be
taken for a particularly luxuriant pair of antlers.
The view through the window with
new green
equally
is
flat. It is
a spring landscape,
leaves on the bushes, flowers in the grass and a thin pow-
dering of late snow over the blossoming fruit trees. But no modeling of form, no modulation of light, defines the lay of the land. Instead of using perspective to build his composition, Matisse used a series of pictorial analogies.
to the
The roof of a house seen beyond
shape of a chair seat
of the trees in the garden
the table and wall. the all.
The
echoed
is
full,
window
is
identical
in
the antler forms of the fabric on
flower stems in the fabric are sketched in with
same economical, abbreviated however. Harmony
the
foreground. The sinuous branching
in the
in lied is
line as the servant's hair.
held together by
its
Most of
chords of pure color
even, conveying just the effect Matisse
sonorous, perfectly
intended.
S,'hchukin put Harmony gles to a long line of
throughout 1908, but special commission.
in lied
on
his
dining-room wall,
at
the
During
same time he began
to talk to
his visits to the Steins',
by Matisse called Music, dated 1907.
was similar
Joy of Life, but
it
elaborate plotting and planning. At the
him about
a
Shchukin had no-
ticed a little picture to that of
at right an-
Gauguins. He went on buying Matisse's work
Its
subject
had none of the larger picture's left
stood a naked man, playing
a violin: in the lower right sat a figure listening to the
music; behind
99
them
middle ground, two female figures were locked
in the
esque dance routine. pressly called
was an oddly incomplete painting
It
a sketch
it
— but something about
Shchukin
style suggested to
Thurber-
in a
— Matisse ex-
forthright sculptural
its
man
that Matisse might be the very
do a
to
home. He men-
wall decoration he contemplated for the stairwell of his
tioned the project to Matisse, and Matisse was interested: during the winter of
1908 he produced an almost
called
Dance (page 88).
I
he subject of his sketch was
sketch for a mural that he
full-size
people engaged in a round dance.
five
Their bodies were a pleasant sandy color, faintly tinged with pink from the physical exertion, but they were not too immersed in their activity
around and judge the
to look
much
was about to give can was this,
at
its first
they were making. Dance was very
effect
in the air in Paris at the
time
— Sergei
Diaghilev's Russian Ballet
Western European season, and Isadora Dun-
the height of her fame. Matisse apparently took note of
but his
own composition
spoiled peasant dance. Dance
ground of Joy
of Life,
stays faithful to his
and they
appears
it)
Edward Steichen's romant
photograph
of the art
i^t
below
example of the simplification st
rove
for.
He was
.
oi
is
beach
form thai
lu-
in
the forms so that the
movement would
comprehensible from
all
even
!>\
be
points oi view.
the model
\\
ho posed lor
to the talk to
Restaurant Larue
that he
whisked Matisse off
— then one of the best restaurants
him about an even more ambitious
in Paris
project. Instead of
— to
one wall
and
figure,
he wrote that he had '"thinned and composed
Vilified
evening on the
in the
Collioure.
Shchukin was so pleased with the sketch
a perfect
human
back-
n-
ob\ iousl) uninterested
a conventionally beautiful
at
of an un-
in the
turn were based on a Catalan round
in
dance which Matisse had seen fishermen perform Matisse's sculpture La Serpentine, which
memory
based on a group of figures
is
all
decoration for his stair well, he proposed Matisse do three, one for
each landing. Each, as Matisse explained later to a friend, was to be
"On
different in feeling. it
the
first,
want the
I
My
and have a feeling of lightness.
visitor to be stimulated
panel represents, therefore,
first
""How awfully ugly!" she said- the work superbly accomplishes Matisse's purpose.
the dance: a round dance whirling above the
the silent heart of the house, attentive listeners.
On
hills.
On
the next floor,
see a musical scene, with a group of
I
the third floor
all
is
peace, and
I
shall paint a
scene of repose, with people lying on the grass, talking or dreaming." All three
were
to
means: Dance was
convey emotion to
directly, by the simplest possible
have only three colors, "blue for the sky, pink for
the bodies, green for the
hill.
Shchukin sent Matisse
.
.
."
a firm order
from Moscow
placed an order for the second panel, Music.
The
Dance and
for
price set for
was 15,000 francs (then worth about $3,000), and for francs.
The double commission was by
action to date.
It
was, in fact, a turning point in his career. But
wrote him from
Moscow
local bourgeoisie
by hanging on
But Matisse
my
failed to sense the
warning. In the
final
made the bodies
in
fact
a note almost of desperation to the scene.
sketch the second dancer on the
did
left
was
if it
might
kill
her
in
version of
brick red and
For instance,
a pleasantly
off.
NUDES
accentuated: Matisse
she was rather enjoying the workout, but
sion the exertion looks as
100
staircase a picture with
stressed the dance's innate ferocity,
if
all
of his resolve "to brave the opinion of our
is
looked as
12,000
when Shchukin
Dance the nakedness of the dancers added
Dance
far Matisse's largest single trans-
not go smoothly. Matisse might have foreseen trouble
it."
VLusic,
also
plump in
in
girl
the
who
the final ver-
Altogether Dance
is
clos-
er in
to Stravinsk)
sjtirii
Rite oj Spring,
s
which death ends the
in
dance, than to wholesome recreation.
Dance Matisse drew upon
In
fishermen, but
his
memory
the dancing of Collioure
ol
Music (page 89), he invented everything from scratch
in
except the figure of the standing fiddler (which he Music,
sketch. stillness
owned by
the Steins).
and trance, quite
lit"
t
pose. Next to that
seem
him he placed a seated
to suggest a
is
implicit in their pose, but as
added three
From
in attitudes
one
leg folded so
a distance the
two figures
The nature
music also needs
listeners. At first they
lounging on the hillside
music of
he placed the fiddler
this,
to interlock, creating a single, abstract unit.
music
little
withdrawn, inward-looking
a
flute player, with
lay at right angles to the fiddler.
it
tisse
To achieve
one edge of the canvas and gave him
off to
from the
opposite of the thumping and pounding
the music suggested bv Dance.
ol
He wanted
lifted
of the
Ma-
to be heard,
were conventional music lovers,
of conventional rapture, and there
were flowers and an enraptured dog. But as the work progressed, Matisse
eliminated the flowers and dog and dispensed with the listeners" es-
skyward-looking poses. Instead he
thetic,
drawn up against
them
sat
each ignores the others, absorbed
in his
own
numbers of women
large
enthusiasm for
when, as
in Music, the facts of
women
A
could he possibly
over the stairs? Especially
all
manhood were
Shchukin foresaw himself ostracized and
He
chamber music concerts
his
men â&#x20AC;&#x201D; how
as well as
have pictures of naked men and
ciety.
his
conflicted with what he regarded as his obligations to society.
had two adopted teen-age daughters, and
drew
knees
private happiness.
Shchukin was delighted with both pictures, but
them
bolt upright,
their bodies, in attitudes of intense concentration;
so explicitly spelled out?
daughters barred from so-
his
contract was a contract, but Shchukin had to live in
Moscow
and Matisse did not. Would Matisse take back the paintings and redo them, one-third vate apartments, so
much
for three
size, so that
Shchukin could hang them
hen he returned at
pri-
he dropped everything and went off to Spain
months, determined
began work
own
where no one would be the wiser? Matisse was appalled:
so, in fact, that
W
in his
once on
a
to forget the
whole thing.
Issy-les-Moulineaux, in January 1911. he
to
group of paintings completely different
in char-
acter from the wall decorations he had been doing for Shchukin. The)
were crammed with incident,
astir with brilliant
mosaics of color,
The
versified almost to the point of incoherence.
inspiration for
di-
them
had come from another of Matisse's 'new acquisitions."' In the previous
summer he had gone
lamic
art. It
confirmed rel
to
Munich
to see a large exhibition of Is-
was one of the great events of his
in his belief that
cage of conventional
flattened out. tilted sion. Narrative,
one did not have
life.
He had come away
to be trapped in the squir-
Western perspective: the world could be
upward,
set free
ornament and
from the limitations of normal
significant detail could be
complex pictures that made sense on every as studies of character, as beautiful objects.
level It
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
combined
vi-
into
as records of events,
had been done before;
it
could be done again.
The
first
of the pictures to use this
"new acquisition" was The
Paint-
101
ers Family (page 87 ),
which Madame Matisse and the three children
in
are placed like paper cutouts against a background coruscated with
densely patterned color. Carpets, wallpaper, upholstery fabric, even the tiles that frame the fireplace
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; everything
is
on the move. This was
followed by Interior with Eggplants, a picture so
seems
at first to
frame are
real
all
covered with
To com-
the same insistent pattern of polka dots arranged in circles.
pound the problem, Matisse added
more
scrolls
on
it
be one huge, flower-spattered carpet. The walls, the
and the painted frame within the
floor
of pattern that
full
a scroll-patterned folding screen,
and several mirrors
a tablecloth
to reflect
these pat-
all
terns back and forth.
In another revolutionary
Red
Studio, he took the op-
upon
pattern, he reduced the
painting. The
posite tack. Instead of heaping pattern
workroom to one continuous sheet of uniform red. Yet the room reads as a room because of the subtle way Matisse has laid in its furnishings. Some of them are obviously against a back
walls
and
floor of his
wall, others are just as obviously against a side wall, aslant the field of vi-
sion.
And though none
them appear
to
of
them
is
painted in three dimensions,
have bulk because of the relationship
all
of
which they
in
stand to one another.
Meanwhile,
as Matisse investigated these
"new acquisitions" from
Is-
lamic art. Shchukin was having second thoughts about Music and Douce.
Deciding that
it
was absurd
to forgo
two such beautiful paintings, he
Moscow in January 1911. At the come to Moscow to supervise their hang-
had them packed up and shipped to
same time ing,
lie
invited Matisse to
and Matisse accepted. Ostensibly
from the moment Matisse stepped
it
was
to be a private visit, but
off the train in the
lall
of 1911, he
was surrounded by admirers. Reporters interviewed him on the station platform and followed him everywhere, and an eager public hung on
word. Moscow knew of him not onlv through his pictures
his every
at
Shchukin's and an exhibition, several years before, of modern French painting, but through his
own
been translated and published
"A Painter's Notes," which had Moscow literary magazine. The Gold-
article, in a
en Fleece.
When
Matisse got to Shchukin's house, he found that his pictures
were hanging
damasked
in tiers against
an op-
walls, in competition with
amount of ornament coved and decorated ceilings, imitation Baroque doorways, sumptuous and heavily swagged valances that reached halfway to the floor, candelabra heavy enough to stun an elpressive
ephant.
It
was a setting that would have overwhelmed
paintings. Nevertheless, after Matisse persuaded
the paintings' glass coverings and to hang stead of tilted
downward, they held
Shchukin was
a sensitive
that Matisse got the
their
them
own
less
Shchukin
powerful
to
remove
flush with the wall in-
quite easily.
and considerate host, and he saw
most out of Moscow. He had been quick
to
it
to rec-
ognize Matisse's interest in non-European art, and he must have fore-
seen with what excitement Matisse would respond to Moscow's 15th
Century icons. A collection of these icons had recently been cleaned
and restored, and they stood revealed for the
102
first
time in centuries
Even allowing
in their full glory.
for the politeness ol a
"don't realize what treasures
said,
much-feted
"You Russians," he Young people you possess.
Matisse was clearly astonished by them.
\isitor.
here have
.
those available to young people in Europe.
new discoveries
Modern
are to be made.
from these early Russians.
Some Russian
.
.
disposal examples of art which are far finer than
at their
It
artists
is
that
.
truth
is
complete months before Matisse
Matisse
drew
himsell
The Painters Family was directly
inspiration from the icons and that
The
Moscow
." .
scholars have suggested that
influenced by them.
here in
should draw inspiration
The Painter's Family was almost
thai
Moscow. Rut Matisse and the
left for
icon painters undeniably had certain things in
common: an
interest
the expressive power of the arabesque line, a love of pure, singing
in
color,
a
that, as Matisse put
"exactitude
it,
icon painters habitually tilted space
him. they reveled
And fall
surface
that
is
not truth." Like Matisse, the
upward toward the observer;
like
the beauty and solemnity of the paint surface.
in
make Matisse
1911 must have been enough to
in
love with painting
in
the knowledge
regard for outline drawing, and
fastidious
all
over again, for the icons had
been
just
cleaned of more than four centuries of candle soot, over-painting and
ill-
judged varnishing. Like
Moscow, Matisse was impressed by the ancient
visitors to
all
buildings in the Kremlin, and he longed to paint them in the snow. Rut
the snow
came
late in the
back to his studio. In
winter of 1911, and he was anxious to get
November he
left
fluence, however, remained strong for ists
to
and intellectuals remembered him
more than as a
to return. His in-
a decade. Russia's art-
man who would
remain true to his own private vision; whenever free
gether. Matisse's
of any other
I
Moscow, never
name entered
European
the conversation
risk
anything
spirits
met
more often than
artist.
or Matisse, the influence of Russia was equally strong, although
fects
many
to-
that
its ef-
were not immediately apparent. The icon painters had confirmed of his
own
ideas, not least of
them, his ideas about space.
When
Matisse painted the legs of a dancer, for instance, he was as concerned
about the shape of the space between the legs as he was about the legs themselves. Looking
at
the work of the icon painters, he saw that they
too were aware of this: that the space between the upraised arms of a Virgin, or between the figures of the Trinity, was an important element in the painting.
Matisse's trip to Russia was the last of the great journeys during the period of
Morocco
"new in
acquisitions." Thereafter, except for two journeys to
the'winters of 1911 and 1912. he did not leave France
again until 1930, ly for
when he went
to Tahiti.
The Moroccan
pleasure. Matisse loved North Africa for itself
visits
were pure-
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; the unending sun-
shine, the riot of flowers, the unhurried magnificence of the Rerber
tribesmen.
He
also loved
lighted to paint.
It
it
because
was a way of
it
life in
made
palpable a
way of
life
he de-
which flowers did not have
bought, but were there for the picking;
in
to be
which people did not dress
up, but dressed gorgeously as a matter of course; in which the inten-
103
was a
of the light
sity
Altogether, he
not a thing that had to be imagined.
fact,
enormously well
felt
North Africa, and
in
he had reasons for being pleased with
his paintings
Although French officialdom
to the public.
home,
too,
life.
There were signs that the message of through
at
was
at last getting
un-
failed to
still
derstand him (Apollinaire, describing the opening of the 1913 Salon
d'Automne, wrote that the attending Minister listened with obvious
boredom thing to
to a eulogy of Matisse), Matisse already
official
had the next best
recognition. Four years before, in September 1909, Bern-
heim-Jeune, one of the great galleries of Paris, had signed a contract with him. Under put as
at prices
Bernheim-Jeune agreed
it,
to
buy Matisse's entire out-
ranging from $100 to $400 a painting
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; basing the amount,
was usual, upon the picture's dimensions rather than on
its
quality.
This contract had been negotiated by Felix Feneon, the friend and champion of Seurat, and
was the
it
first
of a series that was to cover every
year between 1909 and 1926, except for a two-year interruption during
World War
Bernheim-Jeune's support meant security of a more or
I.
impregnable sort and access to
less
international art-buying
a large,
public.
Matisse's best customer, however, continued to be his Russian pa-
Shchukin, who went on bin ing most of Matisse's major paintings
tron,
until the
onded by
outbreak of World
for instance,
ar
\\
Toward the end Shchukin was
I.
sec-
and fellow-collector. Ivan Vlorosov. In April 1913,
his friend
when Bernheim-Jeune
put on a
show
Mo-
Matisse's
of
roccan paintings, Shchukin and Morosov between them bought eight
One
of the 12 pictures.
enthusiasm was
result of this Russian
that
40 years or more, some of Matisse's best work was unknown
W est, or was sian
known only by
government
finally
Even now, access
for
the
hearsay. Not until the 1950s did the Rus-
put
them
to
in
its
is
Matisse paintings on public display.
something
the top door of the Hermitage
Museum
an adventure: they are on
of
Leningrad,
in
in
what used
to
be the preserve of the Czarina's ladies-in-waiting.
F
or that matter
when they were
was an adventure
it
in
still
to see Matisse's paintings
even
Shchukin's house. In October 1913, Shchukin
museum
come to Moscow in the preceding two weeks expressly to see his pictures. Thev had come from Berlin, Frankfurt. Nuremberg, Hagen, Strasbourg, Flensburg, Hamburg, Darmstadt, Halle and Oslo- and every one of them had spoken of Mawrote Matisse that 10
tisse as
directors had
"a great master." Earlier,
in
February 1913, 250,000 Americans
had poured into the 69th Regiment Armory cial
in
modern
exhibition of
the United States.
ings
and
It
art,
in
New York
to look at a spe-
the largest such collection yet assembled
included 13 Matisse paintings, three of his draw-
a large sculpture.
But there the response had been different. Al-
though the Armorv Show's most discussed painting was Marcel Du-
champ's Vude Descending a
Staircase,
consistently attracted violent sentially epileptic".
104
pay".
comments.
.
.
was Matisse's work that most
comments from
"An
the press.
"Ugly, coarse, narrow, revolting".
"The drawings of
sanity typical
.
.
it
.
a nasty boy," were
.
art es-
"Alaking
some
in-
of the
The Yew York Times, which had been one of Matisse's harshest ics,
was nevertheless
sufficiently
impressed by the uproar to send a
lad) reporter to Issy-les-Moulineaux to interview him.
she found "not
prise,
as
a long-haired, slovenl)
had imagined, but
I
One's ideas
ol the
man and
cordiality put
me
To her
blonde gentleman.
directly
at
my
last
degree, and the
man an
healthy individual such as one meets by the dozen every day.
anxious
to
American people and father, that
I
reinforce
am
her
normal man; that
have three
fine children, that
1
I
I
am
a
He need
.
.
ordinary, .
.
."
Ma-
devoted husband
go to the theater, ride
horseback, have a comfortable home, a fine garden that etc., just like
.
.
impression, asked her to "tell the
a
that
ease.
.
of his work are entirely opposed to one an-
other: the latter abnormal to the
tisse,
great sur-
dressed, eccentric man.
a fresh, healthy, robust
whose simple and unaffected
crit-
I
love, flowers,
any man."
not have worried. Before the year was out Matisse had ac-
quired two new and important American patrons, the
New York
lawyer
John Quiiin and the Philadelphia patent-medicine (Argyrol) millionaire
who had been one of the sponsors of the Armory Show, soon afterward bought The Blue Vudeand the small sketch. Albert Barnes. Quinn,
Music,
from Leo and Gertrude Stein. Barnes was already
Riding with his children â&#x20AC;&#x201D; Jean
a collector ol
Impressionists and post-Impressionists, and eventually assembled the
They were to be followed, at a reby scores of other American enthusiasts. At long last
greatest Matisse collection in America.
spectful distance,
everything was going Matisse's way, and the signs were there for any-
one
to see.
The house and the garden
look like one of his
own
at
Issy-les-Moulineaux began to
fastidious, well-appointed pictures: trim
and
gleaming and well ordered. There were Cezannes on the dining-room
Pierre and Marguerite at the of Clamart, near
average father.
An
and the garden, tended by a gardener, overflowed with a super-
abundance of fine
flowers. Matisse
had
it
made.
the right.
in
the fields
Matisse seems like any
enthusiastic rider, Matisse
often went out alone, with the children, nr
with his friend Picasso
who sometimes joined
him during the time he
lived in the suburbs.
But, as always, diversions from his work were rare:
it
was
at
about this time that Matisse
was painting the large-scale compositions
Dance and Music
wall,
Pari-..
is al
left
for his Russian patron
Shchukin, finishing
his sculpture
La Serpentine
and beginning dozens of other pictures.
105
B
'y
the end of World
War I, Matisse had gained
prominence as an artist, in his late forties,
his children
had grown up and,
he had every reason to regard his
The Languid
life
with quiet satisfaction. During the easy and prosperous
Odalisques
decade that followed, he turned to a subject that was a
symbol of rich pleasure, the languorous, sensual women of the harem, the odalisques. Matisse had seen
North African
many
women during his earlier travels. Now he
recaptured their sumptuous beauty with the help of pretty models,
whom he posed naked or partly dressed in filmy,
brightly colored costumes.
The tradition
of painting odalisques was a long and
respected one in French art Ingres, Delacroix and Renoir ;
had established
it.
But Matisse's infatuation with these
indolent playthings
is
unexpected
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; he was, after
all,
a
precise painter concerned with exact color harmonies
and
meticulous composition. This intellectual bent was only
one side of his nature, however, and paintings he revealed himself as a
in his odalisque
man who loved the idea This lithograph of an odalisque,
of pleasure and delighted in the exotic. his
While indulging
enchantment with the odalisques, he nevertheless
continued to press forward.
He experimented again with
sculpture and lithography in portraying these lovely
women, and space into
in his paintings of them
flatter planes, to
fill
he aimed to compress
the entire surface of the
canvas with a unified decorative pattern and to achieve ever
106
more exciting interactions of color.
made by Matisse
in 1925, repeats
a pose that the artist interpreted in a variety of prints,
drawings and
sculpture as well as painting. In
all
media, Matisse followed his rule that "the simplest
methods are
those which best allow the painter to express himself."
Odalisque
m
Striped Pantaloons,
I')!!.")
'-
101
hu
Larue Scaled
t
was no accidenl
that Matisse
completed one
and
hest
understood the female body as well as any lived,
although he often distorted
achieved this knowledge
In the
of his
known sculptures (above) during the when he painted many of his besl odalisques. He finest
period
man who ever And he
in his art.
it
at least in part
In explaining
how
to draw, Matisse
once told
'Translate the curves of the body as for their
volume and
fullness.
in
is
its
creating.
sculpture.
to
same
way, two lines are sufficient to express one form."
108
Look
The outlines should be
spherical shape. In the
the right. Matisse
practices what he had preached to his students. The
odalisque
is
round and
hand and elongated artist
full,
foot
her ovoid head, abstracted
seem modeled from
clay.
Had the
not simplified the forms in this wav. giving the figure
against the ornate background.
his students:
enough. Speaking of a melon one uses both hands express in one gesture
at
1925
the curves and mass of a statue, she would have been lost
through
sculpture, which forces the artist to think in three
dimensions and physically to/ee/the forms he
voluptuous odalisque
\utli:
W
ild
arabesques crowd the
rug and walls, practically smothering even a large mirror in a lavish
baroque frame;
a lush, leafy, potted plant, a
patterned cushion, and a tempting bowl of oranges also
compete
for the viewer's attention. Vel the
asserts herself.
the busy slightly,
nude
easily
Only around the face did Matisse interrupt
movement of the background, smudging it to make her leatures stand out more clearly.
Decorative Figure on an Ornamental Background. 192"
109
The Painter and His Model,
M
latisse painted
he did
women
quite differently in his Paris studio than
Mediterranean
in the
of the artist with his
I'M
light of the Riviera.
model shows Matisse
in a
The
painting above
somber autumn
Parisian mood. Both figures are almost featureless in the
gloom of the
bare studio: the baroque mirror behind the model seems like a
tarnished ornament in
over from happier times. But two years
left
later,
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; where he spent more and more of his time from 1917 â&#x20AC;&#x201D; Matisse painted the same scene again. In the bright
Nice
onward
southern
light, his
among gay
model
is
revealed as an ample beauty languishing
flowers in a chintz-covered overstuffed armchair.
Everything speaks of ease and plenitude.
Where
the Paris study
suggested that Matisse could not bear to dwell on details, here
everything
is
delineated; the pattern of the rug, objects on tables,
even the painter's gaily striped pajamas.
and the
artist paints his
own
museum,
it
i
pages.
The
first
it
The
spirit
does the magnificent one on
Matisse odalisque to enter a French
was bought by the government
110
the model has a face
bespectacled profile clearly.
Nice has enhanced this odalisque as the followii
Now
in 1922.
of
The Artist and His Model. 1919
111
Odalisque
in
Red
Trousers,
1922
p
I retl retty
women
costumes, the
in colorful
warm
sun of southern France, the haunting indolence of the
Moroccan odalisques
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
all
these
suggestions of pleasure bubbled up in Matisse's
work
for the rest of his
In the 1930s
life.
he
painted an aristocratic beauty, Princess Elena Galitzine, in exotic outfits.
As an odalisque
(right), the princess radiates a sophisticated
elegance missing in studies; her bold,
many
of the artist's earlier
handsome
features and assured pose add to the luster. Matisse himself stressed
the importance of his models. said, ".
.
.
are the principal
depend entirely on liberty,
and then
I
my
"My
theme
model
models," he
my work.
in
whom
I
observe
I
at
decide on the pose that best
suits her nature."
Matisse in his paintings created a world inhabited almost entirely by
Occasionally he
made a
women.
pencil portrait of a male
friend, but in his painting life
femininity only. in a suite
sunny
From the
is
late
seen in terms of
1930s on, he lived
of rooms in the Hotel Regina on a
hilltop
above the city of Nice the sultan,
in effect, of a perfectly
114
:
ordered harem.
Odalisque with Striped Dress, 1937
VI
How to
Paint
a Masterpiece
Matisse belonged to the generation of Frenchmen whose lives were
clouded
in
childhood,
in
middle
and again
life
in old
age by the fad
France had an implacable enemy: Germany. He had grown up
that
in a
countryside permeated by the disasters of the Franco-Prussian War,
and
1914 he was sickened to see the whole thing happening
in
Although Matisse was
again.
would soon be of rain
draft age
and Vlaminck
Beyond war's
that,
old idea of
By 1914 Matisse was by external events. the war and
and
its
over
Braque, De-
to be a
prophet to see that whatever the
Europe was going down forever.
far too
Still,
complete an
be deeply affected
artist to
he was sensitive to the changing times, and
attermath did to a degree influence his work. During
the war his compositions
when peace was
younger colleagues
his
all
two sons
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; were called up from the moment- war was declared.
one did not have
outcome an
unfit for military service, his
became introspective, almost
abstract,
and
restored they overflowed with delight in his physical en-
vironment. Typically, however, he continued to pursue his constant goal, the big picture, the masterpiece,
and
in
1927 he once again achieved
Decorative Figure on on Ornamental Background was a painting that
it:
combined
When
his love of pattern with his search for
monumentality.
the war began Matisse was 45. Although he could not fight he
longed to make some contribution to his country's struggle. The
can
bright decorative effect of
Matisse's
work
in this portrait
in the
1930s
is
seen
Lydia Delektorskaya. Starting with
love seat, Matisse at
on a graceful
let
the sides of the
voluminous blue gown
fall
replied.
And
so. in
of 1914, Matisse once again went south to Collioure.
new one, the giftwho had formerly been a neighbor
At Collioure he found an old friend, Marquet, and a
Spanish painter Juan Gris,
who had been
influenced by Picasso to try Cub-
ism. Gris was a natural intellectual, a painter
is
and yellow
vance what he wanted a picture visual facts to
a design of high-
intensity red. black
the
of Picasso in Paris and
the shapes until the
complemented by
"With
a
mind
fit.
who made up
to look like,
his
Blur. 1937
mind
Anything sloppy or accidental was abhorrent
like
mine," he once
said,
in ad-
then manipulated the
"how could
I
smudge
to him. a blue,
.
or draw a line that wasn't straight?" Gris loved to talk, and Lady in
"What
Marcel Sembat, now Minister of Pub-
between
the figure ami the wall, and all
his old friend
Works. "Go on painting good pictures," Sembat
lic
ed young
the floor
picture, flattened the space
simplified
do?" he asked
of his secretary
a conventional pose
swoop up
I
it
had been
years since Matisse had had a companion of this sort. Not surprisingly,
117
the gentle, unassertive Marquet was allowed to sink into contemplative silence while Matisse
and Gris argued their heads
"Marquet
ing relentlessly," Gris wrote a friend.
"We
off.
talk paint-
listens, but
I
think
he's rather bored."
What was
on those occasions
said
was arguing out, trying
tisse
is
unknown. But
to articulate,
is
it
Ma-
clear that
some of the problems and soOnce again, it
lutions inherent in painting a large, important picture.
seemed, he was quite consciously coming to grips with the job of creating a masterpiece. In 1897 this had led to The Dinner Table, in 1906 to
Joy of Life,
in
1909 and 1910 to Dance and Music,
in
To each
Family.
er's
in 191
of these big paintings he had given
he had, but
Now
each case what he had to give had been different.
The Paint-
to
1
all
was
it
dif-
ferent again. For a long time, however, the nature of this difference
was hidden from public view. The war had made painting almost
There were no Salons
cret activity.
at
which
to exhibit
a se-
work, and no
eager patrons dashing to Paris whenever there was word of something
Many
new.
not seen in public until
many
years later.
there were clues to what sort of paintings these might be. Short-
Still,
ly
away and were
of Matisse's wartime paintings were packed
before the start of the war, Matisse had taken a studio in Paris
Quai
old address on
St. -Michel
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
just for
at his
convenience' sake. Once again
he looked upstream to Notre Dame, a subject that had always served
him
well.
As a student he had painted the cathedral with
all
tention to detail of an architectural draftsman. Later,
under the
spell of
Impressionism, he had gone
gitive effects of sunlight
on
he had painted
it
seemed indeed
that he had
that
it
at
to do.
at-
when he was
out to capture the fu-
every hour of the day. Subsequently
as old stone, as cotton candy, as melting ice cream.
was possible
thing new.
it
all
the careful
It
done almost everything with Notre Dame
But
he did some-
in 1914. before leaving Paris,
He reduced the cathedral
to a series of flesh-pink rectangles,
turned the familiar outlines of the bridge and the quays into a network of thick black crisscrossing lines, indicated a cluster of trees with a
patch of green and added another patch of greenish black to suggest the mat of evergreens hanging to imagine a
more abbrev
I
he following
ing,
no
down over
the embankment.
summer down
at
II
indole.
The
title
suggests one of
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; the win-
shutters thrown open, the view of a southern sea and, in
the foreground, the bowl of fresh-picked flowers. But The Open dole
is
hard
Collioure he produced another paint-
The Often
less drastic, called
its
is
iated statement.
the virtuoso pieces in which Matisse took such evident delight
dow with
It
not like that at
The whole center
all.
of the picture
by one huge black rectangle; on one side of
it
there
is
a
is
II
in-
occupied
weathered
green shutter, on the other, an equally weathered blue wall. In conventional terms the picture
Some
critics
and emptiness
is
empty; there
have seen The Open
to
II
is
nothing
indole as a
in
it
to look at.
symbol of the despair
which the French people had been reduced by the pros-
pect of an interminable war. Matisse
of moral energy as anyone.
was as much affected by
He complained to
this loss
his friends of his ever great-
er difficulty in bringing his picture ideas to fruition as year after year
118
manhood
he had to stand by, while the
The Open citing
and
\\
indow
full
is
of France was cut down. Yet
not a pessimistic picture.
the contrary
it
is
ex-
of promise. Anything could he happening within this dark-
ened rectangle or nothing could be happening a
On
at all.
And
is
the rectangle
darkened room seen from outside, or a night landscape seen from with-
in?
It
is
as fascinating
where the oracle
and mysterious as the dark recesses on Delphi
lay hidden.
The Open U indow was a painting 40 years ahead of in
1914 had done what American painters
neth Noland would do much
later.
several bands of color interact
make
all
like
He had
Barnett
its
time. Matisse
Newman and Ken-
created a picture in which
upon one another so meaningfully
as to
other kinds of painting seem fussy and outdated. Several years
make an
before, Matisse had spoken of a wish to
art that healed, as
sunshine and high altitudes and a simplified existence were once thought to heal tuberculosis. The Open H indow it
works upon the vision as fresh
air
is
that sort of picture:
works upon the body, making one
feel larger, freer, better.
Matisse could have gone on from this picture to invent a totally nonobjective art, but he was too typically French to push that far ahead of society. Besides,
odd
he truly loved to paint objects
bits of furniture, the
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; flowers,
pretty
women,
view from his window, the scrolled pattern of
the music rack on his Pleyel piano. Also he genuinely enjoyed re-
working the traditional themes
war he seemed
to
1916, for example, like felt
ot
French
art,
and especially during the
draw strength from these themes. In the spring of
when
the Battle of
Verdun was weakening France
some unquenchable hemorrhage, Matisse wrote a friend that he for nothing"; shutting himself up in his studio on Quai Saint-
"good
Michel he produced a series of
little
head-on portraits that go straight
back to the eyeball-to-eyeball scrutiny of the people in the 16th Century portraits of Corneille de Lyon and Francois Clouet. Simultaneously,
he painted several
still
lifes
of a favorite pewter pot in which the ro-
bust modeling and the beautiful whites rival those in the
still
lifes
of
the 18th Century painter Chardin.
Today Matisse's wartime paintings look
like
votive offerings to the
Matisse came as close as he ever did to pure abstraction in these two pictures, painted
within a few months of each other in the
summer
of 1914.
I
lew oj Votre
Dame (left)
shows the twin towers of the Gothic cathedral ruthlessly simplified as stark rectangles
looming over the Seine bridge and quays,
which are represented by In
Open
//
a few harsh lines.
indow, Collioure (right), Matisse
again paints a view through a
of a window?) but elements
this
window
(or
is it
time he reduced the
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; shutters, wall, window frame â&#x20AC;&#x201D; to
bold rectangles of
flat
color.
Soon
after he
painted these innovative pictures, his style
changed once again, never rigidly
to return to
geometric abstraction.
119
such
gods of war, designed to persuade them not to interrupt the continuity of French
life.
While other French painters
themselves with
identified
France by painting panoramas of munitions factories or portraits of the
Unknown
Soldier, Matisse expressed his patriotism by painting the
France he knew best: his home, his family, his garden. Issy-les-Moulineaux's zigzag-patterned
the
balustrade
outside
its
ground-floor windows, the curve of a chair arm, the look of the
ra-
rugs,
scrolled
diators, the dressing-table top scattered with brooches, the cylindrical
bowl that held the goldfish
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; Matisse
put
them
all
into so
many
tures that today Issy-les-Moulineaux seems almost as familiar as
had lived there oneself. jects
It is
as
if
pic-
one
he wanted to give these mundane ob-
if
the permanence that comes with spiritual as well as material
existence.
Once known completely, through
his pictures, they could
never be completely destroyed. way, the war helped Matisse to
hi a paradoxical
There were no
other stage in his
art.
and annual shows
to think of,
visitors to take
He had ample
no colleagues to disturb his concentration. to
pursue a goal that was never
far
from
his
accomplished, out-and-out masterpiece. Happily, he also had plen-
room
in
which
to
conduct the search. His garden
accommodate
van Dongen's Paris studio in
at a
si
K re-
bushy beards. The turbaned host and I
lie
rear of
I
lie
hi-
\\
group, beneath
the two middle Japanese lanterns.
120
and he had
the most of this clear run, and despite continuing bouts with influenza
him weak and giddy, Matisse moved ahead during 1916 and
1917 on a whole series of monumental canvases.
wrestlers in long Johns, striped shorts and
in
itself;
the studio in town, in his old quarters on Quai Saint-Michel. Making
that left
foreground, and Marquet, standing
behind him, dressed up as hairy-chested
are posed
held
costume party
1913. Matisse, squatting on his heels in the
rifiht
his
at Issy still
work on the Shchu-
the temporary studio, put up to
i
opportunity
fully
kin murals; he had a ground-floor studio in the house
the Dutch art
his time,
ty of
neighbor Albert Marquet joined a lively crowd in
up
mind, the creation of a
Matisse and his equall) sedate friend and
of younger painters
to an-
bother him, no dealers
critics to
no frivolous
move ahead
Unlike the small portraits and
still
lifes
that apotheosized the fa-
ile
miliar,
these big paintings stretched the language of art in several
directions at once.
Most of them are
flat
paintings, without depth, and
their basic unit of construction, as in The
Open
II
allelogram of unbroken color. Matisse laid these
The
across his picture.
was happening
a tall par-
is
panels
in a frieze
idea of sectioning off a painting with panels of
color was not especially new.
flat
indow,
tall
The Old Masters often
set off
what
the foreground of their paintings by backing up the
in
various elements with
flat
planes of color. But Matisse's colored panels
are neither foreground nor background.
They
independently of
exist
the objects in the picture, and are the objects' equals.
The Open
lu
\\
indow the
planes of color had formed a private, ab-
flat
was nothing
stract world; there
in
the painting to
place. But the big panel paintings that followed
One
identifiable detail.
own
in Matisse's
There
is
of
them
room
living
view of the garden, the Plevel piano with
and behind the piano, on the //
oman on It
is
a
High
its
its
any known
obviously
is
it
and the pianist
window with
to
it
included a wealth of
it
The Piano Lesson:
is
at Issy,
the familiar French
tie
his
is
set
son Pierre.
scrolled balustrade and
music rack and metronome,
own
wall, a painting of Matisse's
painting,
Stool.
especially easy to place The Piano Lesson because shortly af-
terward Matisse painted a straightforward, naturalistic picture of the
same scene, The Musie in
from the garden
his brother
Pierre to
Lesson. Pierre Matisse
to pose for
it
remembers being
one hot summer's day
called
1917: he and
in
Jean had been pelting each other with pears. Matisse asked
sit at
the piano and placed his sister Marguerite beside him,
to turn the pages.
He
put Jean to the
Matisse in a rocking chair, out placed his violin, in
its
opened
Haydn's sonatas, positioning
in
left, in
an armchair, and
the garden.
case, and beside
On it
Madame
top of the piano he
he placed a volume of
so that the title ran vertically through
it
the picture, to emphasize the sense of depth.
M
latisse
never made
art
correspond more closely to everyday ex-
perience than he did in this picture. The Music Lesson turned, wary autobiography. Here its
is
is
a kind of well-
the well-kept suburban
home
with
scuffed but comfortable furniture, the well-behaved children reading
or practicing under the watchful eye of their exemplarv mother. All that in ity
is
missing
is
a cross-stitched
sampler on the wall. The same scene
the hands of less gifted artists was to
become the standard commod-
of French art in the 1920s and 1930s.
The Piano Lesson and The Music Lesson were very different sorts of tures.
One was
literal
and easy
to read; the other
pic-
was an abstract color
study that looked haphazard but actually represented years of careful thought. Both pictures, however, derived from reality pictures of Matisse's
own
and padded across the lawn to his studio world behind to work
in
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; they were both
room. But when Matisse
living
in
the garden, he
the house
left
that real
the world of his imagination. There was noth-
ing in the studio to anchor
him
to fact.
It
housed the dream world of
Dance and Musie, the two pictures he had painted 1910. In 1916 and 1917, he entered that in the
left
dream world
for
Shchukin
in
again, this time
context of his North African experiences.
French North Africa occupied a special place French painters and writers.
It
in
the thoughts of
stood for light and color, for the liber-
121
ation of the senses, for a lost paradise. French travelers there put aside
careworn
and were reborn. The North Africans were
identities
a sub-
ject people, but
they seemed to possess the secret to a dream existence,
a kind of life in
which time did not matter and food was there for the ask-
ing
and sex was taken for granted. Adventurous Frenchmen "went na-
tive" in North Africa without the slightest compunction.
Although Matisse was no adventurer, he did come away from North Africa with very strong and exact impressions of the
wanted
them down without bothering too much with
to set
scription.
He had
and he
there,
life
literal de-
already recorded the actual North Africa in a series
of pictures done shortly after his two visits to
Morocco
in the
winters
Now he wanted to paint his own private memory of Two large paintings resulted: Bathers by a River (page
of 1912 and 1913. lhat experience.
90) and The Moroccans (page 90-91). The Moroccans was wall-size, 70 10 inches, and Bathers by a Hirer was even larger, 103 by 154 inch-
by
1
es.
Both are tributes
tisse
was
to a people
to simplify painting.
compositions
who had
learned to simplify
Ma-
as
Both are also grand, spare architectural
which Matisse took enormous
in
life
liberties with the nor-
mal processes of pictorial representation. It is
easy to describe what these pictures contain. Bathers by a Hirer
shows four
some
girls,
a
and
tropical foliage
shows
a snake.
The Moroccans, a
a
mosque,
a balcony, a latticed pergola,
house with shuttered windows,
a pile of
melons
scene of small-town
life,
Moroccans wrapped
a group of crouching
easy to describe
how Matisse has taken
in a
in their
marketplace and
burnooses.
It
not
is
these things apart, simplified
all
and abstracted them, and turned them into symbols. Bathers by a River and The Moroccans arc not illustrations; they are monumental images.
Even today these two paintings are astonishing Among the
prints Matisse executed in 1914-
1915, the one above, VudeTorso, Folded, line.
is
It is
outstanding for a
monotype,
as a painting.
It is
its
Inns
ly
precise, spare
a single print as
made by covering a
daring of the manner
in
which Matisse played with
for the reality.
simple Bathers are not mere symbols; they areas hesitant and cranelike
as real
women would
be under similar circumstances.
unique
real too,
although Matisse has reduced
to a
it
dense growth of
the design with a stylus before the plate
ting edge of the leaves, of the abrupt contrasts of light
is
pressed onto paper. In the printing process is
is
tart
a sense of the nearness of water, of the sharp cut-
green leaves; there
The landscape
plate
with printer's ink or paint and scratching out
the pattern
freedom and Yet the stark-
is
semitropics. As for the
little
and shade
in the
snake, raising his questing body and sharp-
blurred and a second, identical
cannot be made. Even the
self-critical
Matisse was pleased with this creation of elegant white lines on a black ground.
pointed head from the bottom of the picture, he seems an impromptu
af-
terthought. Yet he happens to be an essential part of the design. If he
were not there, the cut loose from
its
rest of
the picture would pull away like a balloon
mooring.
n The Moroccans, Matisse was able to pack his picture with information
about how things looked by abandoning conventional perspective and
making the eye
travel up,
ways been interested particularly in the
down and
in
the
across
all at
the same time.
He had
al-
way objects resembled one another,
way the human body took on the appearance of
erything from a cathedral to a piece of
fruit.
Moroccan men made
ev-
this
point especially well, partly because their clothes were so expressive, partly because they often sat motionless for hours
roccans
is
in
one sense a study
in
men and melons and mosques have
122
form: in
it
is
on end. So The Mo-
about the roundness that
common.
It is
also about the spare -
ness and simplicity of Arab
life,
well-proportioned spectacle
— an
icans and Europeans. Finally,
from
to take
and the way thai
experience usually denied to is
it
about the making of
the scene, and to
how to end up with one's own private vision.
ol
it.
in
novels
who work life is
made
of his career.
was
ter
Nice
a decision that
He decided
at
such
that of
a pitch
have
like to
I
my
believe
"
it."
— an inner
whole future course
to influence the
and travel south
to see
what win-
him, and the following year he went back.
still
Matisse said
good fortune." The
many
his
uncommercial.
relatively
looked out the window and said to myself 'This as
drop dead. But
Henri Matisse
became increasingly the center of
on, Nice
those days was
in
was
to take a rest,
like in Nice. It suited
From then
dif-
December 1010. Matisse heard the
voice always sounds a warning. In voice and
on pictures of three
must have sometimes been unbearable, but Matisse never Painters
— especially when the
in real life
how
a picture that relates both to
strain of working at the top of his energies
ferent kinds
spoke
Amer-
a picture:
scene the forms that are needed, how to dispense with
a
the ones that are not;
T.he
shapes up into a
life
is all
working
life.
"When
I
first
mine, for as long
years later, "I simply couldn't
had kept some of the quality of un-
city
discovered paradise that Victorian watercolorists had stumbled on. but it
something of the bustle and color of other great southern
also had
by the sea
ies
— of
its
cit-
near neighbor Genoa, for instance. Along the
wide Promenade des Anglais the big waterfront hotels were perfect ex-
amples of seaside-playground architecture.
open markets were
filled,
day after day, with fennel and sea bass and
anges fresh from the tree. The
was
town the
In the old part of
light
or-
was not glarey and relentless, as
it
many other parts of southern France, but subtle and endWaking up in a tall-ceilinged room overlooking the boat-
in so
lessly varied.
harbor of the Baie des Anges was
filled
where the
lights
waking up
like
have just gone up, and the play
is
in a theater
different every day.
who was pushing 50, was very soon in greatlv improved physical shape. He exercised regularly, particularly by rowing. He became an enthusiastic member of the Club Nautique, and could often be glimpsed pulling steadilv out to sea, a square-built man in a single During one nine-month period he went rowing no fewer than
154 times, and for this won the Club's medal put
it.
rarity,
He
also
and taught himself to guide
coming
a car case,
I
of the
For in
(When
day when automobiles were a
it
down
the middle of the road at a con-
a friend asked
him what he would do
in the opposite direction,
should bring
my machine
if
Matisse said, "Well,
to a halt, get
down, and
sit
o)
Matisse's drawings for his
with costume design.
<hi
Andersen's fairy
one of the big sea-front hotels, and every day
his routine
tales.
Matisse to apply his
art to
this
instrument for
its
own
ballet
was a
failure,
and some
never painted anything more tenderly than the sky-blue its
case
— but he also
had a favorite notion that
if
although they suit the exquisite story.
May,
was the
— he
silk lining
critics
jeered at Matisse's delicate design and color,
in thai
sake
the theater after
Picasso had done so with brilliant success.
where, out of his fellow guests' hearing, he would practice the violin
two hours. (Matisse loved
"The
The Russian
same. At seven he would rise and make his way to a remote bathroom
for
rossignol, a ballet
impresario Sergei Diaghilev persuaded
he met
to
is
enture
Nightingales Song," one of Hans Christian
by the side
December
years Matisse passed every winter, from
\
was done for a 1920
It
road until the other machine had passed.") five
first
with music by Stravinsky based on
The
as he
in a
bought an automobile
servative speed.
— "for assiduity,"
one
production of Lc chant
Matisse,
scull.
The here e, bearded Oriental warrior above
of
his eyesight should
123
ever
him, he could support his family by playing
fail
From nine from
to twelve Matisse
and
a model,
past the
would work
at
in
the street.)
his easel,
most often
lunch he would either take a siesta or
after
Aleppo pines and the parasol pines
stroll
in the Jardin Albert Pre-
mier, to one of the cafes on the Place Massena. At four he would go
back to work, and
in the
evening when the davlight was gone, he would
close the shutters and put aside his brush, to
draw some aspect of what-
ever had occupied him during the day. Continuity of effort was essential
He was tormented,
when the local girls he recruited to be his models asked for a day off. And when the annual carnival season came around, he resigned himself to posing them so that
to him.
they could watch the tun
in
for instance,
the street below
I
he Nice paintings from the
begin with they were tisse's
were very special
in
To
character.
Ma-
closer to the facts of actual vision than
other work. In Paris, he consistently abstracted and formalized
what he saw; ized
much
first
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; instead of fidgeting.
every
in
in effect,
toured his hotel room and item-
also, in the
Nice paintings, an unaccustomed
Nice his eye,
There was
detail.
sense of relaxation.
The
self-portrait he painted at
Nice during his
first
winter there shows a country gentleman in a well-cut tweed suit,
sit-
ting at his easel, engaged in a task well within his powers: the picture
has none of the strain and anguish of the self-portrait painted
For years Matisse's aim had been
at Collioure.
to
1906
in
change the future of
painting, and the pictures that resulted had been intensely demanding.
Now. suddenly, he had inn' ol
The
public loved
warmth Mil
is
se
years,
in this
building
\lthough he
burning,
liliiuling
fled
sun
Nice Inr 17
the
summer,
to t
II.
home base from
shows the yellow-washed
building splotched w
camouflage against
ith
it.
Even before the end of the war there was
response. In January 1918,
>
at
when Matisse shared
new
show
the Paul Cuillaumc Gallery, Apollinaire remarked,
have inspired Matisse to trust
1921
own
instincts.
in
in
the power and authenticity of his
People became convinced that a very pure and rare kind
of happiness was to be got from ownership of a Matisse painting. In fact the
Nice paintings came to stand for a certain idea of French
lization.
This was
dark painl for
air raids.
a
a
tie
The photograph above, taken during
World War
it
the forew ord to the catalog, that the beauty of the southern light seemed
the Cote d'Azur's
in
apartmenl remained his to 1938.
in
in
with Picasso
occupied a balconied top-stor)
apartmenl
relaxed, and the art he set before the public was
pure pleasure.
life
as
il
could be, ought to be, and better be
civi-
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; serene,
ordered, delicious in every detail, and available to everyone.
The image, of course, wasn't consist of pretty
with flowers.
women
quite true.
Even
lying around naked, in
Nor was there anything
in
bedrooms heaped high
intrinsically delicious about the
black umbrella hanging on Matisse's washstand.
and spontaneous was
in fact the result of
one done
in Paris in
years later. In the Painter
and
his
What looked
hard work, but the
hind the hard work was different. The difference lar paintings,
Nice reality did not
is
simple
spirit be-
explained by two simi-
1917, the other done in Nice two
Model (page
1
10), painted in the stu-
dio on the Quai St. -Michel, Matisse analyzed and simplified his subject.
He took it down to its bare bones. The room itself is divided squarely down the middle into a light area and a dark area, and both areas are plain to the point of austerity. The model has been reduced to an anonymous female figure sitting in a chair, and the artist himself, in the foreground,
124
is
an amorphous, bolsterlike shape; neither has any identity.
1929 Matisse
Iii
turning
to
Ins painting
lei
lie
sculpture and graphics;
fallow, in a
months he had etched more than 120 Like II
I-
cm in r com
iiniiiii
uiih
etchings ol favored v\
itli |ict
al
live
Dog
I
an chien
<
Ret lining
at left,
these delicate
reflect
the mollis he
women the time.
He posed
few
plates.
his
model, often
annuals or goldfish, against an
intricatel) patterned
background and
materials that set
her languorous charm.
\\
oil
orking directly from the model before him
he would scratch his drawing on the copper plate itsell rather than sketch anil
In the Nice painting,
reversed.
The
and his Model(page
Irtisl
artist
striped pajamas, and the naked
Where
vidualized plaything.
one
is
is
and highly
large
and spare,
in
indi-
this
of the artist,
in front
two
still lifes
of flowers, and the tiled door
ever)
stir-
broken and fragmented by pattern. The contrast with the severe
parallelograms
ol
Matisse was no
the Paris picture
life.
absolute.
is
playing with art
I
sense playing with less
a desirable
room was
his easel
al
not an undecorated surface in sight. Curtains, wallpaper, table-
cloth, cushions,
face
model
the Paris
is
small and luxuriant. Except lor the canvas
is
there
III), the conditions are
clearly Matisse himself, sitting
is
in
the Nice pictures, hut he was
1
took on the timeless languor
North Africa (one of
in a
Pike a sundial he was marking only the cloud-
hours. Tin scenes he painted were devoid ol
the
ol strain,
and
his
women
harem women he had studied was a decorative,
his favorite props, in lad.
in
half-
transparent harem screen that he brought hack from Morocco). People,
worn out by the war. wan led was as
real.
Within
$10,000
ings
at
a
to believe that the
world of these pictures
decade the Nice paintings were selling lor as much
auction
more than even the
Matisse paint-
finest of the
had brought before 1914.
In the fall of 1921
Matisse decided
istence for an apartment.
and Matisse was Adding
when
\ it
hotel
to
exchange
room does
not
tiresome to have
to
his
hotel-room ex-
make an ideal studio, move out each May,
the hotels closed for the season. Besides he considered the rales.
roughly $5 a day for each
member
was always careful ahoul money. Charles-Peli\
I
of his family, rather high; Matisse lis
new quarters wen- on
I
he Place
in the old section of town, a pari of Nice thai had existed
long before anyone thought of going to the south of France for pleasure.
The apartment belonged
to the
American author Frank Harris,
who had used to write his amorous, near-pornographic autobiography, My Life and Loirs. \\ hal Matisse bought of the Harris hook is not on it
I
record, but he very
top floor of a
tall,
much enjoyed
the Harris apartment.
ochre- washed building and
It
was on the
looked out to sea across a
two-storied, barrackslike structure called Les Ponchettes, past
crumbling arches one got an occasional whiff across the Mediterranean
of
first
on paper
then transfer his design to the plate.
whose
Nice's sister cities
of Tunis, perhaps, or Vlgiers.
125
own
Matisse's
building was Italianate in style, with an imposing stair-
case of solid marble and
some unpretentious
many
frescoes;
of
other
its
inhabitants were singers from the nearby opera house. Close by was
the Baroque church of St. Francois de Paule, and the fish and vegetable markets ran almost
up
to his front door.
He took
a liking to a res-
taurant across the way, Chez Albert, frequented by young advocates
from the Nice law courts, and sometimes
in the
evenings he went off to
the local art school, the Ecole des Arts Decoratifs, run by one of his
There he would draw
old classmates at Gustave Moreau's, Paul Audra.
from the
cast as patiently as ever.
— Simon was
Bussy was
Antibes
at
kind of
life
taken care
a few artist friends not far
away
Roquebrune-Cap Martin and Pierre Bonnard
— but for the most part Matisse led the
he had always wanted, with
life
monk,
of a
the practicalities of
all
a
life
and the day divided into an unvarying routine.
of,
M
Nice and painted
latisse loved
when
at
He had
it
with pleasure even on the days
Promenade des Anglais was swept by hailstones and the Baie
the
des Anges turned from blue to cafe-au-lait. But the greatest pictures of the Nice period are those of indoor scenes, in which there tiful
light within.
a beau-
Matisse was by this time on easy terms with the art of the
even Cezanne, with
past
now
is
balance between the brilliance of the light outside and the filtered
whom
he had wrestled so doggedly, was by
a friend rather than an antagonist
ings are variations
on the themes of
echoes of Chardin and Manet
in
— and
earlier
the Nice
many
been up
much copy
to,
of Ingres in the paint-
still lifes,
ings of odalisques, of Delacroix in the imaginary
did not so
of the Nice paint-
French masters. There are
harem scenes. Matisse
these past masters as ask himself what they had
and then feed the answer through
his
own
sensibilities.
The Nice pictures were portraits of total fulfillment, serene in the way that Matisse had always wanted his pictures to be. Every part of each painting was as important as every other part; there were no areas of climax and no areas in which the touch
became dry and mechanical.
Although the things he chose to paint were things that always charmfreshly picked lemons, newly sunlit sea,
women
in
waxed furniture, the
never-before-worn
reflected glitter of a
summer frocks—the manner
which he painted them was equally charming. The paint was
in
tiful as
anything
it
as beau-
described. Matisse once said that the surface of a pic-
ture "'should carry within
complete significance. " The Nice
itself its
paintings illustrate what he meant
— they make their point as paintings
even before one has identified what they are about.
No riod
earlier painter
had ever quite done
Boucher painted
of the girl got
all
port. Chardin,
a pretty girl,
his attention
When
in
the Rococo pe-
naked or half naked, the prettiness
and the
who was incomparable
of the peach, the
this.
rest of the picture at
was
just sup-
rendering "the shaggy velvet
amber transparency of the white
grape, the moist crim-
son of strawberries," nevertheless surrounded these superlative objects with other objects that were simply tisse set
had
down
traits.
126
visited his
filled in.
Delacroix,
North Africa and had been fascinated by
memories of these harem playthings
who its
like
Ma-
odalisques,
in a series
of por-
Like Matisse, he fastened upon their provocative costume
— the
knee-length pantaloons, the
silk
the gold ornaments
and throat
m
them
wrist
al
jerkin slashed to the waist, the turban, but unlike Matisse he painted
traditional chiaroscuro. \ol so Matisse. His odalisques play
out the masquerade of their captivity
in
the
even, saturated
full,
light
of the Mediterranean.
The Nice paintings and adding
create a kind of tovtown for adults, in which
new and none
the toys are
to their
will
all
ever get broken. Matisse went on adding
contents until every square inch of canvas was
filled
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;piling pineapples upon an antique phonograph, putting real flowers against lake ones, even painting a small reflection of himself into a mirror hanging
To
at.
a
on
They were
a wall.
a delight to paint
and
a delight to look
Europe battered by war, they were even more than
contributed to Europe's spiritual convalescence. People gotten what
it
was
like to sit in the
suaded that such a
life
was
that: they
who had
for-
sun and have happy thoughts were per-
The
possible.
still
reborn, and Matisse helped to bring
back to
it
idea of pleasure
was
life.
This achievement would have been enough to satisfy most people, but not Matisse. Something was lacking in the Nice pictures that had
been present
one did not
the earlier pictures: monumentality. Looking at them,
in
feel that the
image before him was of something grander,
stronger and more definitive than anything he himself could have imag-
The absence
ined.
of this quality
made Matisse
restless,
not by accident, he turned again to the art form which
and
in
1022.
by nature mon-
is
umental: sculpture. The result, after three years of work, was Seated \iide. the largest
The pose lor it was one woman, leaning backward, her hands
of his sculptures since 1908.
that clearly obsessed him: a seated
clasped over her head, one leg drawn up with
He used
other knee.
it
in a
lithographs and in 1924 put ion.
drawing it
in
its
foot tucked
1923, then repeated
into a painting,
in several
it
Vude Seated on a Blue Cush-
In the sculpture the figure rests in space, backed
air; in
under the
up by nothing but
the painting, the body's powerful curves are set off by the curves
of the chair and cushion, and by the rectangular forms of brightly pat-
terned wall hangings and carpets.
T lo
make something monumental out
body was not an easy thing in
one unbroken
line
of an actual, identifiable
to do. Matisse
from head
to feet
had to
find a
and back again, but
time he had to deal with the inconveniences of reality. to
imagine an impeccable
line,
and quite another
do not always
an upraised
leg
ture be
and taut where, for the
laxed,
stiff
and
it
it
the same
one thing to the fact
artist's
purposes,
it
may by
should be
nare-
into ugly, unsculptural effects at precisely
the point where the artist wished life
to adjust
always bulge in the right place. The body
may bunch up
at
It is
the right way, nor do the muscles of
that breasts
fall in
human
pose that flowed
it
to be pared
and flattened. Art and
had somehow to be reconciled.
At such times Matisse habitually withdrew into his studio into his ark.
old friend
The
social amenities
Marquet
in Paris,
new work before heading wall.
meant nothing
to him. Calling
he scarcely pretended
for the earlier Matisse
"Forgive me," he would say, "but
I
like
to look at
Noah on
his
Marquet's
nudes hanging on the
can't think of anything ex-
127
.
cept what I'm doing myself." "I
like a
felt
curate," Marquet later
remarked, "when the bishop comes to call." For a time, of searching, Matisse allowed
cupy the center of
a
life to
number
dictate to art.
in this period
The odalisques who
oc-
of decorative interiors done in the early
1920s turn out to be, on close examination, not idealized playthings but middle-class
Frenchwomen running
slightly to fat, their faces are va-
cant and bloated looking, and they are none too stylish in the way they
— and this was new for Matisse, whose nudes were usually time-
sit.
Also
less
— they clearly
belong to the 1920s, from the way they wear their
hair and pluck their eyebrows.
But once again, something got
the way of monumentality.
in
truthful sagging, the poignant flabbiness, pulled the painting earth.
The
result
was interesting psychologically, but Matisse
ligation to explore the psychological
women. That,
to him,
Matisse usually turned to sculpture as a three-
was the function of the novel. Besides,
that could not be shared by the other parts of the picture
the flowers, the furniture
— and
to
brought the two arts together as he
beauty was out of place: to him
experimented, over more than 20 years, with
pear half-eaten by wasps.
a series of low-relief sculptures of a female life-size
or larger
— were
flesh tainted
look any further than the walls of his
much-worn 18th Century
unique one-man,
one-subject history of
modern
art.
Beginning
with a careful, almost naturalistic study that rooted in the 19th Century, Matisse
progressively simplified until finally the hack is
reduced to two
tall
columns divided by
third, a thick tress of hair.
clearly
The trend
a
is
would
the carpet,
human
by age was as welcome as a
Actually, in his quest for monumentality, Matisse did not need to
completed between the years 1909 and 1929.
is still
it
Matisse that balance was essential.
They constitute
a
no ob-
a weight of feeling
Also, in Matisse's view, any emphasis on the fleeting aspect of
painting. In one instance, however, he
—
human body
two dimensions of
his struggle with the
back. Four reliefs
felt
predicament of middle-class French-
upset the pictorial balance to give the dimensional exercise that refreshed him from
The down to
own home, where
there
hung
a
portrait of a grand, impassive Tibetan lama,
and nearby, carefully protected by
glass, a fragile but
still
beautiful
16th Century Persian carpet. In the immobility of the lama and the insistent
arabesque pattern of the carpet, Matisse found the inspiration
for the big painting that finally exorcised his
on on Ornamental Background (page U>
c
>).
demon: Decorative Figure
The preliminary drawings
away from an imitation of nature and
toward a goal that Matisse had sculpture as
more "true
mind
in
show the model slumping languidly
as in painting: to
make an
but in the painting
human body
would he
her body
much
equivalent for the
in
for this painting
to life"
that
than any painstaking
is
itself,
completed
in
against the wall,
1927, he altered her position;
square-cut and upright, with a helmetlike head and small styl-
ized breasts that
come
not from
life
but from Matisse's
own
sculptured
representation of everyday visual experience
— more accurate and pure product of the
meaningful for being a
arii>t'--
128
creati\
ii\
Sealed \ude. Decorative Figure on an Ornamental Background
is
the culmination of
everything that occupied Matisse's attention during the Nice period: pat-
monumentally, the beauty of ordinary
tern,
the naked female body.
own
Its
central figure
is
objects, the sensuality of
powerful enough
to hold its
background patterned more insistently than anything
against a
Harmony
since the 1909
There
in lied.
is
an arabesque patterned wall-
paper, a Persian-print carpet, a flowered cushion, a figured flowerpot, a
bowl of
and
fruit
ing at the top of
—but only head
a
Baroque mirror
— and
all
lungs. Matisse had to cheat a
its
little.
The pressure
down ever
toned
is
a gilded
of her body isolates
it
little bit
seems to be to bring
talk-
off
all
it
of the patterning behind the model's
so slightly, and a drapery over the lower part
from
it
of
its
immediate surroundings. The picture
is
one of the most aggressively successful he ever painted, and having completed
M
know
he had been working
in
life
to as
by which they mean not just "clarity" but clear-mind-
edness: the ability to
wish, a
to a halt.
one of the great examples of what the French refer
latisse is
In clarte francaise,
own
came
his investigations temporarily
it.
exactly what one
is
doing and why. By 1927
He was living, by his and he had made himself a new
Nice for just on 10 years.
of dedicated retirement
reputation as the poet laureate of a carefree, monied society that liked
nothing better than seeing the Good Life made visible But there was something
ings.
Too many of
in Matisse's paint-
about this success that vexed
facile
were unknown
new public. In 1927, as if to set the record straight, he brought some of them out. He sent The Moroccans to New York for a show arranged by his Matisse.
son Pierre
to this
the Valentine Dudensing Gallery (Pierre had gone to the
at
United States er).
his great paintings
in
1924 and was making a name for himself as an
art deal-
Later that year Matisse shipped The Piano Lesson and Bathers by a
Hirer to an exhibition in Paris.
During
that
same year, the Carnegie International Exhibition
in Pitts-
burgh confirmed Matisse's American reputation by awarding him first
prize for Fruits
and Flowers,
a typically
sumptuous
still
life
its
from
the Nice period. But Matisse, instead of capitalizing on this success, practically
gave up painting. In 1929, for instance, he put his main efforts
into well over 100 etchings,
fourth
in a series
and into
a
bronze
bas-relief.
The Back (the
of studies of the female back, begun in 1909. in each
of which he had taken increasingly greater liberties with anatomy).
was
as
if
cided to
new
Matisse, listening to the voice of
let
painting
dormant
lie
until
la clarte
It
francaise, had de-
something happened
to give
it
a
direction.
Suddenly,
in
national invited rent show.
1930, that impetus was provided.
him
to
come
to Pittsburgh to serve
Inter-
on the jury of its cur-
Normally Matisse would not have considered closing up
his
other people's paintings. But the
in-
studio to travel abroad and look vitation
The Carnegie
seemed
to coincide
wanted
for years Matisse had
thought, do both?
New York — to
And
visit
so he set
his
at
with the stirring of a long-dormant wish: to see the off, first
son Pierre
— and
Pittsburgh to act as a Carnegie juror.
fundamental
South Seas.
for the
Why
not, he
South Seas by way of
then three months later for
From
that decision
came
others,
to the rest of his painting career.
129
Dance
II,
L932-1933
The Struggle for Simplicity
130
The product
of countless drawings
and color sketches, the
final
version of the Barnes mural.
Dance, shows the clean,
stylistic
refinement of Matisse's mature
n 1930, Matisse, restless with the
work he had imposed on himself threw off his well-ordered first
schedule of
for almost three decades,
and
left
France.
He
traveled
to the United States, then to Tahiti to see for himself
the light
The
life
rigid
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; and the islands â&#x20AC;&#x201D; that had captivated Gauguin.
trip revived
later
him and upon
his return to
Nice a year
he undertook an immensely exacting project that
once again engaged his obsessive need to simplify painting.
The
project
was a gigantic and complicated mural (above)
for Dr. Albert
Barnes of Merion, Pennsylvania. In
it
and the
paintings that followed, Matisse refined and distilled his art;
many versions of some of these works, and they stand today as records that show step by step how he reduced he made
his painting to its simplest
and purest
state.
131
art.
,
mM
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
M
latisse painted the
I
Ik-
fate of the
heartâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; of a
fit
Barnes mural not once bul twice.
mighl have broken the
lesser artist.
1930, was to of the main
firsl
The mural, commissioned
into three large arches high
room
for the
in
(at right, belou
an earlier
Moscow home of Sergei
more than
a year's
I
32
work and anguish. Matisse sent
Resolutely, Matisse began again. About six
however. The Musee
first
painting; the
months
later,
he emerged with an even more stylized result (preceding page).
l
(lie
There the sickening truth was discoveredâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; the mural was live led too -hort to fit the arches it had been ordered for.
ir/2-by-42-foot picture (right) are also reminiscenl of the
of he
Matisse refined
the completed painting to Dr. Barnes for installation.
Shchukin (pages 86-87). His early color sketches of the ^hehukin work, with their roughhewn dancing maidens and raw colors. But in the finished version
).
are cleanl) drawn, the color- reserved.
Alter floor
theme of the mural
would be the Dance, which he had used
commission done
in
above the
of the mansion housing Barnes's
collection. Matisse decided that the
mural
and the
spirit
The
first
purchased u
in
version of the mural was not wasted, d'
\n Modernedela Villede Paris 1937. In L968 it was shown (above) al a
huge Matisse retrospective
in
London.
))
Dance
I
(preliminary sketch
Dance
I
(preliminar) sketch
Daniel, 1931-1932
133
17
18
M
latisse left posterity a fascinating insight into his
method of working when he had
a series of black-and-white photographs taken of each of the 22 versions of his painting
Pink Nude. His
first
study was completed on
May
1935
3,
(1), his last
was done by
October 30. The numbered photographs above trace his struggle to produce a masterpiece.
The Pink Nude begins
as a portrait of a
voluptuous
girl
on
a sofa, the
corner of the room providing a sense of traditional perspective. Searching for greater effect.
Matisse flattens the painting by enlarging the
figure
girl's
limbs and finally removing the
By the ninth version, the background is completely flat and the has been moved so far forward that both feet and an elbow run off the canvas.
room's corner
(6).
After a series of stretchings and alterations, the body totally dominates the picture (16).
From this extreme, Matisse
retracts the limbs,
the tension of the torso, softening leg
is
it
(18-20).
tucked tighter to the body and the
134
rounds the elbows and knees, and lessens
Then
artist calls
the head
is
raised again (21), the left
the work finished (22 and right).
Pink Vude, 1935
M
latisse's
genius for organizing a picture
was fundamental to simplification.
his search for
Even
after the serious illness
of 1940-1941, which
left
him weakened and
often confined to his bed, his disciplined
approach to composition held his favorite (left)
One
firm.
Completed
still lifes
at this
of
time
has been compared with the tautly
balanced Romanesque altarpieces that Matisse certainly knew in the churches and
museums
of southwestern France. In those
religious works, Christ or the
Madonna
is
placed at the center while four saints occupy the corners to add balance and strength. In the picture at flower
is
left,
a vase of leaves with
one
the focal point; a platter with a
handle provides a halolike background that also unifies the pitcher, the vase, the plant
and the
shell in the corners with the
centerpiece.
The sense
of
harmony here
perfect that the removal of
is
so
one of the objects
would cause the entire composition
to
collapse.
as
Some
of the objects in this painting, as well
some
in
Tabac Royal (following pages),
reflect Matisse's
attachment to familiar
accessories of his daily
and the sea
life.
The pewter jug
shell at left, the lute
and the
crockery jar labeled "Tabac Royal" on the next pages, were used by Matisse again and again.
Tabac Royal
is
the fourth of a series of
paintings completed by
They
are
all
him
in 1942-1943.
elaborate testimonies to his
ability to find inspiration in the simplest
things. Late in his life Matisse confided, "I
have worked for years might say, Red Still
'It
in order that people
seems so easy
Life with Magnolia, 1941
137
to do.'
"
m Mj|[
Tabac Royal, 1943
140
VII
A Mural Barnes
for Dr.
when Matisse decided
In 1930.
New York and
go ahead with his idea of a trip to
to
the South Seas, his career had reached a critical point.
For years he had heen
walled up
in effect
He seldom saw who admired was solitary. Madame
studio.
in his
other painters and had almost no contact with the people atid
bought
his paintings.
Even
his
domestic
life
Matisse was unwell and kept to her room for months on end, and the three children were his
mind,
was not
his
all
oul
in
the world.
W
i
t
h nothing
output of paintings had eased almost to a
idle; etchings,
new
engage
to
halt.
True, he
drypoints, lithographs and sculptures took the
place of the paintings. But there was no concealing the fact that he need-
ed a change of scene. Methodical
change as radical
in all
things, he chose to
make
that
as possihle by taking in. within the space of a few
months, experiences as opposite
to
each other as
New York 7
City and
Tahiti.
Mai ed,
isse
loved
New York from
he said, to cancel the
The change
ol
light,
every department
of
much
the start, so
rest ol his trip
and take
so that he was tempta
New York
the change of scale, the change of attitude in life
were
just
what he needed. At a time when
most cultivated Europeans thought of the United States Barbary, and of Americans as people
duce Painted
when Matisse was almosl
80 years
old, this port rail of the
interior of his studio greal oil painting.
I
is
the arhst
sense
s
ol
who bought
as a
art hut
mechanized
could not pro-
Matisse took a longer view. Without committing himself on
the current state of art in America, he implied that great things were in store.
To an interviewer from the \cn York
Times, he observed that
his last
nified w
vibrant red, the scene
it.
studio.
is
il
h
every art
was the
logical result of its
surroundings: "The gray skies of
.1
bright with
humor; beside
one of Matisse's own paintings
Holland are reflected
in
Dutch paintings,
just as the
sunshine
flected in Italian surroundings."' In addition, said Matisse,
of the people as well as their activities
all
is
re-
"the thoughts
have their influence on the
(upper right) the view through an
open u indow appears as too,
flat
as
il
it,
Pausing to wipe his thick spectacles with
table in the lower rijjht a calico cat is
paintings which their painters produce."
were painted; beneath the
chased b\ a dog, both as abst
as patterns
on
a carpet.
a
light-brown
silk
hand-
kerchief that harmonized with his ginger-brown suit, Matisse went on
racl
to
speak of the special qualities of
New
York.
He mentioned
the look of
the city as one sailed into the harbor, and the view from the top of the Large Red
Interior, 10 18
Woolworth
Building, one of the world's
first
skyscrapers. "This
is
a dif-
141
ferent civilization
from the one we have
can grasp the majestic grandeur of it.
I
have seen
it
at
hundred years ago, and you
comprehension.
to
.
.
parently radical change has
one
.
will
come over
he was captivated by
change
New York
Compare
all
or a
as
Europe," he until
New
all
said.
"No one
he has actually seen
the movies a thousand times, but
yond
Much
in
this with
its
vastness
is
what existed
be-
fifty
understand why such an ap-
painting."
York, however, Matisse was not
a schedule. After a visit of only
two or three days, he
left
for Polynesia, crossing the United States to San Francisco and em-
barking there for Tahiti.
monplace
What
took him to the South Seas was not a com-
interest in the exotic;
civilization that
still
less
was
it
the disgust with Western
had prompted Gauguin to go into
exile.
Matisse dreamed
more benign than any he had heretofore known; he hoped to find it in the South Seas, and he planned to give Tahiti three months in which to take effect. But it is not always easy to of finding a light stronger and
adapt to the reality of a place long dreamed
South Seas did not
suit
him
at all.
of.
Temperamentally the
Matisse was a natural worrier
thrived on constructive anxiety, and in Tahiti worry was
the Europeans he met were bored, while the Tahitians seemed to to be lacking in the
who
unknown.
All
him
moral dimension that comes from measuring the
thing done against what might have been done.
At
first
he did not even think Tahiti beautiful. "I was dumfounded,"
he said, "though unconsciously ages." light in
The
light,
Nice: Matisse
immense
I
was building up
a
new
store of im-
he saw, was totally different from the silvery, refined as
felt
goblet of gold.
if
he were looking into the
The sounds were
far
depths of an
different too: the irregular
pounding of the waves on the reef mixed with the silken
rustle of the
trade winds in the tops of the coconut palms. Tahiti also confirmed his lifelong conviction that colors only achieve their identity in relation to
one another. Looking Tahitian sky, he saw in
When
pre-World War
I
Europeans found
themselves living because of duty dereliction- in the
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; or
more remote corners
world, thev usuall) tried to create "a
home"
in their exotic
bit
of the
of
surroundings. This
Victorian rocker that Matisse sketched in Tahiti
during his three-month
visit in
1930 was
apparently a relic of that colonial impulse as Matisse's desire to his
own
island;
draw
ii
may have
just
reflected
feeling of strangeness on thai alien
it
was one of only
work he did during
a very few pieces of
his entire stay.
142
the lagoon
at
the fruits, foliage and flowers against the blue
how intense
that relationship could be.
an activity that occupied a
Swimming
good half of his time
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; he
noted how the eolor of the coral was set off by the black of the sea cu-
cumbers, and how the sunlight shining through the water turned the bot-
tom of the lagoon the color of absinthe.
Some
painters would
vases. Matisse
was
come back from such
was not that
sort of painter.
a visit with a stack of can-
What he wanted from Although he
a repertory of images to use later on.
filled
page of his sketchbook with rough notes on what he saw,
made
fore he
direct use of
them. For a long time,
in fact,
Tahiti
page after
was years be-
it it
seemed
that
the one product of his stay in the South Seas was a pen-and-ink draw-
published
ing,
in
the magazine Cahiers
curlicued Victorian rocking chair the
last
Irt
d-
in his
1936, of an elaborated
in
Tahitian hotel room. Not until
glorious phase of his career, in the 1950s, did his
the colors and forms of the land and sea
work
reflect
he had seen during his
life
stay in Tahiti.
n October 1930, Matisse returned to the United States to ties as
juryman
fulfill
his du-
for the 29th Carnegie International, a duty he shared
with five other painters, the Austrian Karl Sterrer, the Englishman
Glyn Philpot, two Americans, Bernard Karfiol and Ross Moffett. and Canadian. Horatio Walker. From a
field
a
of 99 American painters and
137 Europeans, the prize went to Picasso for a severe, classical portrait
Madame
of
Picasso. Matisse did not linger in Pittsburgh but returned
most immediately to tried to
tions.
New
draw him out, but he refused any but the most general ques-
He
did say, however, that he disliked Tahiti as a place to live,
and could never work there very
al-
York. Reporters, catching up with him there,
— "1
am no Gauguin" — but
much admired New York and
that he
still
the United States. "American art-
own country," he said. "It is magnificent. Why do American painters go abroad when they have scenes of such varied beauty at home?" From New York he made a quick trip south to see the two great Maists
should not be ashamed of their
America, the Cone collection
tisse collections in
Barnes collection
in
suburban Philadelphia. In Baltimore he stayed
with Miss Etta Cone (whose sister Dr. Claribel
Baltimore made
much
of him. But the
Cone had
visit that
just died),
and
mattered most to him
terms of the future was his brief and formal
in
Baltimore and the
in
call
on Dr. Albert
Barnes, the patent-medicine millionaire art collector in Merion, Pennsylvania. Dr. Barnes had
seeing examples of
it
at
begun buying Matisse's work shortly
after
the Steins' apartment in Paris, around 1914.
He had gone on buying throughout the 1920s, with the result that his Matisse holdings were now the largest in America. Barnes was a difficult man with a brutish manner and a positive mania for man-toman controversy. Nevertheless he could hardly have put his enormous fortune to better use. In
coverage of French art in the era bounded
its
by Renoir, Cezanne, Seurat, Picasso and Matisse, the Barnes collection is
unlikely ever to be equaled.
The Barnes Foundation, very its
much
a building adjacent to Barnes'
the same today as
it
did in 1930
modest front door. What confronted him was
ing sight.
He
found himself
home, looks
when Matisse walked through
in a galleried
— and
entrance
still is
hall,
— an amaz-
two
stories
143
high, on
whose walls were
from
original owner, the
its
his
own
Riffian of 1913 (purchased by
Barnes
Danish collector Tetzen Lund); Seurat's
Les Poseuses, a painting Matisse had not seen for 30 years; a large Com-
1906 by Picasso; and one of the grandest of Cezanne's series
position of
of Card Players paintings. These were only a few of the major paintings that greeted Matisse as he
continued his tour.
On
the landing of the stair-
came upon
case to the upper floor, for instance, he
own Joy
his
of Life,
to Tetzen Lund, and bv Lund to Dr.
which had been sold by the Steins Barnes.
M
seized his
when Barnes suddenly he had made up his mind: Matisse
had time to take
latisse barel)
arm and announced
that
all
this in
must decorate the empty space above the French doors a space 11 feet high
hall
tisse's
had
to be
in
the entrance
The doctor's appeal came man who liked surprises. Nor
feet long.
and he was not
as a surprise to Matisse,
was he the type
and 47
moved by such
a
appeals. But Barnes was not like Ma-
other American patrons, the supercivilized Steins and Cones; he being a domineering and boorish man. and he
a reputation for
in-
he was so determined to win Matisse over that he very
sisted. In fact,
nearly caused him to miss a prearranged lunch date. cort to the lunch called at the
door locked and
hat) to
Foundation
to pick
\\
him
hen Matisse's
es-
up. he found the
enter the building through an open coal chute.
Matisse was genuinely impressed bv the beauty of the Barnes col-
and by the discrimination with which
lection
had been brought
more than the doctor's powers of persuasion,
together. This,
duced him
it
accept
to
the
Barnes commission.
In
con-
finally
retrospect,
that
acceptanrr seems fated to have happened. The commission came Matisse never portrayed physical agonv until
around 1935, when he agreed illustrations, including
Polyphemus
(
abox e
),
him an opportunity
to etch
"The Blinding for a
new
of
at
a
Limited Editions Club of
/
edition of
past for guidance.
New
Among artist.
life
entirely different scale.
commissions
for projects that v\ere
parts of a building. Although he did not
York. ol
the works of a
t
he
1.5th
Antonio Pollaiuolo,
he found a small panel showing Hercules crushing the
work on an
also
It
meant
came
rare, es-
to be in effect integral
lyssesb) the
Painstaking as always, he searched art
Century Florentine
to
time when commissions from American patrons were
pecially James Joyce's epic novel
at a
time when Matisse was disenchanted with easel painting and offered
out of the giant wrestler
he continued
More and more
it
became
answer Dr. Barnes immediately,
about his proposal when he got back to France.
the commission seemed to be the "real right thing." In
January 1931 he sent Dr. Barnes an unequivocal "yes," rented a deserted film studio in Nice, and got
Antaeus. Matisse then modified and changed Pollaiuolo's upright Antaeus until
to think
Matisse saw
in
sheer perversity
:
down
to work.
Barnes the good side of what some people took (he strid rules and
to be
regulations thai he had established
the prone, tortured figure of Polyphemus.
for the use of the lo
Barnes Foundation. Barnes considered the Foundation
be a place for the serious study of art. and he was very selective
about visitors. To see his pictures was a privilege, and the privilege had to be lived
up
to.
Something
to the
singlemindedness
about
art
in
in
the singlemindedness of Barnes spoke
Matisse. For a patron
painters, but
The United it
European
did not have a great
European work of
art that
had been
on by Dr. Barnes, Matisse was
de-
to put this right.
The space
144
so strongly
States had no dearth of great art by
specially commissioned. Spurred
tisse
felt
he would create something new, something he had never
tried before.
termined
who
to be filled consisted of three adjoining
arched areas. Ma-
could have treated them as three self-contained units.
If
he had.
work would have seemed
the
above those already on the
an additional row of easel paintings
to be
Bui the existing paintings were too
wall.
and the spaces that Matisse had
great to brook this sort ol interference, to hi
were too
I
far
above eye
such a treatment
level for
to register ef-
fectively. Instead. Matisse decided to let the design flow across the top
room
the
ol
one unbroken horizontal movement that would com-
in
plement the paintings below rather than attempt ture would be a thing
more
to rival
to sense than to look at-
picture rather than see it." said Matisse:
them. The
'"One
pic-
m\
will feel
would operate, he hoped,
it
on the middle ground between painting and architecture, be ""the equivalent of stone or cement."" In the great pictures
on the wall below, the dominant theme was im-
mobility. Cezanne's card players, silently studying their hands, looked as
though their game would never get moving again. Seurat's naked mod-
seemed locked
els
Riffian, set this
wrapped
in their
poses (or
all
to a
to
theme
ures were engaged
in
that had served
dancing
superhuman exertions. They sprang high
leaped and kicked, pounced upon one another.
then collected themselves as In Matisse s
one particular
first
for
if
off-
mural with
Ins
fill
well several times in the past, the dance. But this time his
air,
seated
Berber cloak, stared fixedly out into space. To
in his
concentrated stillness. Matisse decided
strenuous action. Once again he returned
him
nun
eternity. Matisse's
Icll
fig-
the
in
backwards and
another round of violent motion.
sketches for the mural, the composition turned on
figure, a
dancer just
mid-
to the right of the center, in the
dle panel. In a world of tumbling, spinning figures, she stood poised on
one
column on the Parthenon. Beiore
leg, as firm as a
long, however,
Ma-
discarded her -doubtless because her vertical stance interrupted
tisse
the dynamic thrust
began with
ol
the composition from righl to
a high-kicking figure
to a leaping figure
thrust that
left, a
on the extreme right and swept across
on the extreme
left,
whose leap takes her
half out of
the picture.
B and
v
1931 Matisse had worked out the
in
doing so had employed
gular importance to him later
a
form
final
drawing technique
in his
of his
that
was
to the
to be ol sin-
career. Habitually he drew his
positions full size, but he was accustomed to working
was comfortable
composition,
human hand and arm
in
com-
a scale that
enough
a scale small
to
allow him to cover a sheet ol paper from end to end in a single sweep of his
arm. For the larger Barnes mural,
this
was impossible. To approx-
imate the free-running line of a normal-size drawing Matisse fastened a charcoal point to a six-foot pole and, standing before a huge sheet of
paper tacked
to his studio wall,
outlined his figures.
Thev were
giant
fig-
ures, and he emphasized their proportions by draw ing them so that no
fig-
ure was seen complete. In every case the feet, even an entire torso
some
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; appeared
to
part of the
bodyâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; a
head,
have been carried beyond
the picture by the sheer force of the dancer's energy.
The
final
than ever,
a
drafts of the Barnes
man
mural showed Matisse
bent on simplifying painting. In the
first
to be.
more
versions of
the mural, the dancers are modeled as carefully as they would have
been
in a
drawing by an Old Master: the bodies are three-dimensional
145
and there
is
a certain
amount of
characterization. But gradually he
flat-
tened and simplified the figures, and he shifted the emphasis from the powerfully knotted and straining muscles to the bodies' pure outlines.
From
knowledge of
his vast
art history,
Matisse was recalling the an-
atomical drawings of a 15th Century Italian, Antonio Pollaiuolo, and the spikey, incised figures on the black vases of ancient Greek potters.
T
o Matisse's close friends,
was
ral
tremendous
a
noons, driving up
would
it
was clear that work on the Barnes mu-
Sunday
call
after-
chauffeured American car; upon arriving he
and entertain the assembled guests
seat himself in courtl) fashion
with anecdotes and stories. Matisse,
company, and he possessed
lightful
he came to
strain. Ordinarily
in his
even the most exacting audiences
when he
it,
mimicry
a gift for
(in fact,
like
felt
could be de-
that impressed
he would have made a good
character actor, and was pleased to be told so). During his preoccupation with tbe Barnes mural, however, these gifts vanished from view.
came
would
to call at all, he
He
nitude of his current task.
more, perhaps
sit
silent, visibly
much
suffered as
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; from the tear that hand
for
God's sake come
When
at
rhythm
might not go well. At times he
all
many
in
all at
me
one
go. "It
finally set
down
his fully
was inside me," he
said,
headlong into a new problem: color. He had made
color sketches, most of
showed them
hile; a third
com-
along." But his satisfaction was short
them only
another, gray on
in
on greenish yellow
pale blue
;
a fourth, gray-
blue on a background of pink, black and ultramarine panels. right, but Matisse
one the
a few inches wide. In
bodies were tan and yellow on an ochre ground: v\
terrible state,
despair light suitable this afternoon
months of preparation,
that carried
for he ran
lived,
any beginning painter
once Matisse." read one frantic appeal.
Matisse, alter
realized design, he did so
"like a
in
he
perturbed by the mag-
as
even cabled his friends for help: "Decoration position completely out of
If
None was
went on trying. The trouble was that large areas of
color often take on a
life ol
that are unintended.
And when he came
heir o\\ n. altering the composition in
t
to color his
ways
completed design,
he found that his beautifully assured arrangement of forms had to be
changed. "To arrive In the late 1930s.
26 eminenl
art ists
joined
Matisse in accepting a commission from
Steuben Glass, the American crystalware to design
in
I
\
triggered the
whole project;
had stunned a Steuben
something
way, modifying it
tisse
hit
fore long the rare
that
was
the problems dropped away.
Steuben artisans.
framed
in
to
.
his tentative
shapes
in a welter of
in
paint,
Ma-
shapes from colored
literally in pieces,
set against
colored papers while working on a mural
pinned together on the wall. One by one.
The
figures
were reduced
geometrical areas of color
vine leaves
became the Neo-Classic vase above.
The number high that she
dropped
dancers was reduced to
of
almost
is
ground
to the
lost to
to
pure physical high spirits tisse
must have
felt that
six,
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
one
to
flat
stone-gray
pink, pale blue, black. of
whom
has leaped so
view while two others have momentarily
watch their companions. As an evocation of it
could hardly have been surpassed, and Ma-
he had discharged his obligation
French tradition of conscientious craftsmanship.
146
had
moved about easily and tacked on the wall. Bevisitor who was permitted to enter the studio found Ma-
contribution was a satyr playing double pipes.
(top),
.
make these modifications
upon the idea of cutting
designing something for him. Matisse's
his free-llo\\ ing sketch
I
official,
b\ expressing interest In
into an engraving by
to
was alive and singing ."
paper, which could be
standing
Made
the time.
all
was impractical
tisse
John M. (laio.
that
firm,
1937. after seeing a piece of engraved
crystal, he
my
Because
decorations for a special collection.
Matisse actual
grope
at
in the best
And
one small
so he had, except for
flaw: he
had gotten the mea-
surements wrong. The mural was almost two yards too short.
would have remedied the mistake"
artists
culate
how much
Ma-
hv getting an assistant to cal-
the design needed to be changed
and then would have produced
mensions represented
in
order
the space
fill
second version that was essentiallv
a
di-
fundamentally different design problem, and so
a
he put aside a year's work and started
all
over again. After another
nine months, a second mural emerged, unlike the
d" Art
one
first
design
in
(The original mural was eventually pur-
totally different in feeling.
chased by the Musee
to
But not Matisse. For him the corrected
a modification of the first.
and
\\ lial
when he discovered the error has never heen recorded. Some
tisse said
Moderne de
la Ville
de Paris.)
The amiable galumphing dance of version became in version II a mimed combat in which the dancers could \er\ well have been fighting for their lives. The flow of energy, moved from right hich in version I
v\
to left
I
and went straight on out of the picture,
in
version
II
turned
is
this movement downward sharp-
around and sent bowling back again. In the side panels runs upward and across, but
in the
center panel
it
turns
and spins round and round, counterclockwise, seemingly
ly
end of time. As for the two recumbent figures these became in version
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; great,
less like resting
II
calm, monumental figures
who
at
dancers than majestic umpires
are there to see fair play done
but do not intend to exhaust themselves in the doing of
May
In
1933.
ished. Matisse
when
until the
the base of the mural,
it.
the second version of the mural was finalh
accompanied
United States
to the
it
to see
how
it
fin-
suited
the Foundation. Both he and Dr. Barnes were delighted. Matisse had
wanted
to
avoid adding just one more painting to the collection, and he
had succeeded. "As soon as "I felt that a
meaning quite
was only
from what
different
a painted canvas.
rigid thing,
saw the decoration
I
There
in
it
had had in
studio,
the Barnes Foundation
at
the same time as the building.
Barnes, he thought the mural the crown
window
my
it
took on
when
it
became
it
a
heavy as stone, and one that seemed to have been spon-
taneously created
rose
he wrote.
in place,"
was detached absolutely from myself, and that
it
ol
.
.
."
As
for Dr.
his collection, "like the
of a cathedral."
Informality and elegance balance cadi
T,
he Barnes mural was a personal triumph lor Matisse, but
a
triumph
it
was also
in
a- a decoration
for a
way
of working that
is
recognized as quintessential^
French. Ever since Descartes had published his Discourse on Method the 17th Century,
Frenchmen had taken
it
for granted that
in
any prob-
lem could be solved by anyone with "a healthy and attentive mind.*'
ol
her
the cluster of figures that MatisM- composed
over the hre|>laee
in
an
apartment owned by one of the Rockefeller tainily in
New
York. The opposing curves of
the two seated girls in the upper portion give
the design
much
of
its
flowing grace; a note of
gaiet) appears in the lines of the singing girl
All
one had
to
parts. Matisse
do was break the problem down into
its
component
had been doing just this for many years; on the Barnes
mural he happened
to
do
it
on
a
in
the lower portion,
fireplace
Surrounded
uniquely large scale.
who seems
to use the
frame as a prop for her music. li\
dark brown paneling, the
composition glows with color. Matisse
The same method was
also serving
him
well on a
problem
at
the op-
completed
it
in
about three weeks
posite end of the design scale. In 1930 he accepted an invitation from
the Swiss publisher Albert Skira to illustrate a book of poems by the 19th Century French poet Stephane Mallarme. While the Barnes mural
absorbed him during the winter tention in Paris in the
summer
to
in
the south, he gave most of his
at-
the Skira commission. Once again he
147
in 1938.
down
broke
the problem into
poems themselves, the poems would be
component
its
parts: the character of the
which the
calligraphic style of the type from
printed, and the hair-thin line
made bv the sapphire
point of the etching needle.
Mallarme's delicate poems are among the most famous
modern
in
French literature and Matisse met the challenge head-on. The trations (pages 154-155) are
himself said, "the paper
drawn
all
almost as white as
is left
it
illus-
Matisse
in a line so fine that, as
was before
I
went
work." He did not see the book as an album of pictures with verses
to
alongside, but as a true and complete partnership between himself and
the poet.
"The two
""are like the
said,
facing pages, the light one and the dark one," he
white
and the black one that
ball
a juggler plavs
They are completely unalike, and the point of the juggler's art is he makes the spectator see harmony where none existed before."
with. that
he harmony achieved b\ Matisse
I
him
in his private life.
in his
work was soon
to be lost to
Europe from the mid- 1930s onward was a doomed
continent. For an) sensitive person the only question was not whether
war would come, but how soon. Matisse was acutely aware of
man
but he was also aware oi
as
it
an
artist.
One by
this as a
one. his pictures
were condemned as decadent and removed by the Nazis from the walls ot
German museums.
terrupted bv
ill
In addition the former
harmony
1939 was
all
but
ne\ er legalized. French law would ha\ e required in half.
For Matisse,
this
contents of his studio, the work Astonishingly,
in
ican
manufacturer
final,
them
was
in-
Madame
although
it
was
to di\ ide their pos-
would have meant giving up half the
many
of
years.
these circumstances, Matisse not only kept going
new ground.
actuall) broke
luil
life
health and by his grief over his separation from
Matisse, a separation that In
sessions
of his
of
In
1937,
at
the request of the
Steuben
crystal,
fine
Class,
he
Amer-
designed
a
decorative motif for a vase. In 1938 he became involved in theatrical de-
producing the sets and costumes for Leonide Massines
sign,
Rouge
et
\<>ir,
danced by the
Dmitri Shoslakov itch. In
Ballet
less
pushed through the design
Russe de Monte Carlo
than three weeks
in
to
ballet.
music by
December 1938. he
for an over-mantel decoration for the New-
York apartment of one of the Rockefellers. Concurrently Matisse began, as to
make room
1936, he gave so
many
bert
in
his life
away the
and
little
it
art for a decisive
change. In November
Cezanne Three Bathers,
years, to the Petit Palais
his
companion
Museum. Only a year or two
for
before, Al-
Barnes had offered Matisse more than $60,000 for this painting,
but Matisse had refused to part with to
were, to clear the decks lor action,
him
as a painting,
minders of
it
it
ran through
it.
The Cezanne was not only dear
had become his lodestar, his talisman
some
re-
of his greatest achievements, flic seated
figures in the Barnes mural, for instance, are related to the seated
ure on the right in Three Bathers.
And
fig-
the four huge bronze bas-reliefs
of the female back, done by Matisse between 1909 and 1930. work steadily
toward the same sort of simplification that Cezanne achieved
in
the
backs of his painted bathers.
Much
148
as he loved the Cezanne. Matisse
mav have
felt in
1936 that he
no longer needed
Perhaps,
it.
might servo others as rector, he claimed to
He
pletely.
giving
in
know the
museum, he thought the museum's di-
to the
it
had served him. In
it
it
a letter to
picture "fairlv well,
also said that he considered
it
'"a
hope, but not com-
I
very solid. ver\ complete
realization of a composition that
[Cezanne] carefull) studied
canvases." But Matisse had done
all
other
in
he wanted to do with solidity and
when
sculptural form. Ever since the composition of the Barnes mural,
he had used cut-paper shapes to plan his design, something had changed in his creative
The new
method and
in his ambitions.
direction of his work can best be seen
ing begun in
May 1935 and completed some
the series of 22 photographs taken of
it
while
Pink \ude, a paint-
in
months
six
was
it
134-135). In the charcoal sketches for Pink Xude, the model alisticall)
and
Matisse
main problem,
s
in
drawn
is
<
re-
power and phvsical splendor.
creature of great
a
is
and
later,
progress (pages
in
translating this magnificent animal of a
in
P
woman into paint, was apparently in adjusting her to her background. What sort of a background should she ha\ e? \nd how should she be modso that her figure and her
ified
background were integrated? Matisse
much
hearsed this problem, with various cut-paper solutions,
theaterdirector rehearsesaparticularlv tricky scene by playing riety of ways. In the first version the
lying on a couch
w hat
in
model
recognizably a room:
is
the couch and the wall, and
I
here
is
re-
as a
in a va-
it
simply a naked
is
\>
woman
space between
the model rolled off the far side of the
if
couch she would be hidden from view. subsequent versions, Matisse compressed the space
Little b\ little, in
between the couch and the
couch and
that both
too, until in the
on a body
wall,
and
finally tilted the
wall are in the
end she was anatomically
like this, as
il
it
were
a turret,
and forearm ever joined together
to
couch upward, so
same plane. The model changed all
No head
wrong.
form what looks
arch. Matisse has everywhere adjusted and simplified. el originall)
plane, fall
lolled in the
off the
to spring
is
ol
triumphal
like a
Where
the mod-
so far forward that she seems about to
canvas into the viewer
longer suggestive
sal
middle distance, well back from the picture
the final painting she
in
ever
and no shoulder and elbow
indolence.
s
lap.
For that matter, her pose
The
left
leg
from the couch, and the
set
is
drawn up
of her head and
as
left
if
is
no
she means
elbow are em-
blems of vigilance.
The
first
magazine covers Matisse designed
were lor the fro til and hack \
B
mosl
1938 Matisse was beginning to use cut paper not merely as a work-
'v
ing device, but as an end in itself. Instead of serving as a preparatory step to painting,
it
had become painting's replacement. In the
ture called The Dancer, which he
May
made and gave
1938. Matisse put aside the brushes and
dication
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; he was
still
to
l\
cover
(
lo Surrealist hi/i
to
It
Leonide Massine
paints that he had
was not
a
do many beautiful easel paintings
in la-
)
reflects
for:
war with
Hitler's
this,
front in
expressing subconscious feelings by fantas}
he letters
it.
Matisse
he magazine
title
across features that might belong to
man
I
oi
I
beast. For the hack cover (above), he
or
drew
complete ab-
with u leu Haw less
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; but
legendarj half-man, hull-hull that was adopted
it
was
as
I
line-,
the \linoiaur. the
he Surrealists' symbol.
Germany.
In
the face of war, even the most determinedly private lives are interrupted.
To
The
writing and art.
ern Europe was overwhelmed by an event that evervone had dreaded,
some ways bad almost longed
he luxurious
Surrealism's interest
an alternative. But before that alternative could be fully explored. West-
but in
I
or unexpected juxtaposition: tor scattered
oil
bored so long to master, and used scissors alone.
little pic-
ot
rench periodical Minotaure, a rn iew de\ oted
Matisse was no exception.
149
1
M
latisse periodically
refreshed his creative energies by
turning from painting or sculpture to other forms of expression.
And each time he
became more than diversion,
did so, the change in media for
it
led to great art of a
and striking kind. In the 1930s, Matisse used his drawing and his inherent sense of design to books, thus linking himself with the other painters from
Edouard Manet
to
summoned
all
his talents in
—stained-glass windows, ceramic
even the vestments
Vence
in the
Matisse's
skill at
illustrate
modern French
Raoul Dufy, who had put
their art at the service of literature.
Matisse
new
Then,
in
the 1940s.
producing the designs
tile
murals, sculpture,
— for a small Dominican chapel
at
south of France.
first
full-fledged efforts at
book
were for an edition of the works of the poet Stephane Mallarme.
illustration
late 19th
Century
Commissioned by the Swiss
publisher Albert Skira, the book was to be the second in a series
Matisse the Designer
done by important contemporary
whom was Matisse's friendly
artists,
rival, Picasso.
the
first
of
Using etchings
in this first
work, Matisse later made lithographs and, for
the picture
at right,
he used the linoleum-cut technique.
Never content merely
to provide illustrations for his
— he hand-lettered one text
—and choosing the paper and binding. In much the same way he became totally involved when he designed the interior of the
Vence Chapel, a
a few white lines
project that occupied
legendary queen of King Minos of ancient Crete and the heroine of a
him
modern
tragic plav. written by the
French novelist Henry de
her horned crown
in
from
falls
labyrinthine
curls that suggest chains binding
her to her monstrous late as
mother of the Minotaur.
Linoleum-cul frontispiece for Pasiphae
Chant
for almost four years during his last decade.
150
on a black
sensual heautv of Pasiphae.
Montherlant. Her hair
books, Matisse invariably took a hand in designing the jackets, selecting the typeface
\\ ith
ground. Matisse expressed the
</<
Mums
(Iroin Les Cretois
Henry de Montherlant),
I*).'!:-
1
)
I
I
l>\
151
A
Books
Bibliophile's
M
latisse
claimed that he had been a bibliophile before
In the elegy below, the poet
Ronsard begged an
artist to
he even owned a book, and he approached the designing of
portray his beloved without flattery, asserting that only an
books with a special sensitivity to the writers intent.
uglv
In the works
shown on these
He
Europe was locked
16th
old and
The war almost
II.
and
ill
put
occupation of France isolated Matisse from his Swiss
it
was discovered
was impossible because the type used was worn, and the
book was delayed once again.
It
was
finally
published
1948, seven vears after Matisse had started work on
master of French
Matisse created a hand-lettered
title
and decorated the poems with a rococo border,
profile
emblem
of France's
royal line.
were yellowed; simple reprinting
that the printed pages
).
last
heraldic insignia and the fleur-de-lis
War was over could they
continue their work on the book. Then
of Orleans, a valiant military
page to face his lithograph of Charles* noble, arrogant
The
verse of Pierre de Ronsard. the 16th Century lyricist.
Duke
leader in the 15th Century and the
courtly poetry {right
an end to the work below, Matisse's design for a book of
publisher, and not until the
and painters.
the verses of Charles,
World \var
in
artifice of paint
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; the 15th and
when he was
did so at a time
needs the
Matisse responded with a demure and lovely portrait. For
the springtime of French poetry
Centuries.
woman
pages, Matisse celebrated
in
it.
On
the follow ing pages are two of Matisse's illustrations
commissioned book design. Tiny symbolic
for his
first
figures
and clean-lined etched portraits of Charles
Baudelaire and Edgar Allan Poe, the poets literary idols, laced pages ol Mallarme's opaque elusive verse.
ELEGIE A JANET Peintre
FEIN
moy,
De
facon que je
la
II
art
suf'fit
mc>\ je te supplie,
beautez de m'.imie
les
Comnie importun D'un
pun
Janet,
Sur ce tableau
du Roy
tc
les
diraj
je ne te supplira)
menteur quelque fovcur bien
Ainsi qu'elle
si
tu
est,
Son naturel pour
la
luy (aire.
scais portraire
sans vouloir desguiser la
tavoriser
la
Qui
se ttÂťnt peindre, et qui
faveur n'est
:
bonne que pour
Car
cellcs
ne sont pas
belles.
'Elegie a Janet"
152
and lithograph from Florilege des tmoursde Ronsard,
l l
)ll-19tri
a
%nMt)M
l
y
v.
tCKrt' "-"I-; ,- '/fj 1
Lbulx^cLe^ hdJlMA,
Frontispiece and
title
i
page from Poemes de Charles (TOrleans, 1943-1950
\
Lithograph from Poemes de Charles a" Orleans, 1943-1950
153
'Letombeau de Charles Baudelaire" from
154
Poesies de Stephane Mallarme, L93S
'Le
tombeau d'Edgar Poe" from
Poesies dc Stepkane Mallarme, 1932
155
)
Matisse rearranges the scale model ol the chape
A
chapel by Matisse
In 1947
Dominican nun. who some years
a
earlier
had nursed Matisse after an operation, shyly asked his advice
about her design for a stained-glass
window. The window was
to
order was going to build in
where Matisse
lived for
\
be in a chapel that her ence, a small
most of his
hill
tow n
later years.
The
master began suggesting changes, but soon he
became
fired
by the challenge of the entire project
the architectural plan, the construction materials, the furniture, even the priest's robes. Offering to
work without pay and
to
submit to church
authorities for approval, Matisse plunged ahead.
Designing and redesigning from scale models (above) and using cut paper as his sketches for
windows
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; a technique he had pioneered
in the
murals for the Barnes Foundation (pages 130- 131 Matisse perfected a plan of balanced volumes and forms. (For Matisse, the challenge was that of creating a graphic poem, expressing a complex idea in a rigid
verse.)
form as
his beloved poets
He seemed
to thrive
on the
had done
in
strict
requirements of designing a chapel and he rose to the physical
156
demands
of such large-scale work.
Using a bamboo pole tipped with charcoal, Matisse draws
a half-scale figure of St.
Dominic. Behind him are his drawings for the Stations
15'
o)
the Cross.
M
latisse's square-set
hot,
sunny
site as easily as
building.
From
around
to the
it
white stucco chapel
( left) fits its
any age-old Mediterranean
the bright carpet of low-growing plants
Madonna and
Child inset over the twin
sanctuary windows and the wrought-iron spire, Matisse designed, sculpted, drew and meticulously oversaw
every outer detail, even to the landscaping. But
it
is
its
inside
that he fulfilled his aim: balancing, as he said, "a surface
of light and color against a solid white wall covered with
black drawings," so that each contrasting element
V:
^130-
*
•!• -I- •!•
-h
•!• •;.
.J. .j. .:. .;. .,.
.!.•!••!••!••!• •!• •!• .j. .|. .|.
+ +** '«•
'.
enhances the other. Matisse drew the sweeping, ink-black lines of the
murals on ceramic
and mounted on three walls surfaces
seem
to
come
in
tiles that
were then glazed
the church. Their shining
altar
and the serene figure of St. Dominic, the order's founder, that towers beside wall, the Virgin
it.
To
the viewer's right, on a long tiled
Mary, surrounded by
in a
turns again, back toward the door through which he
right
As the worshiper enters the chapel (below) he faces the and gold windows that glow behind the
arms outspread
gesture that foreshadows the Crucifixion. As the worshiper
entered, he faces the 14 Stations of the Cross (below,
alive in the varicolored light
flooding through the stained-glass windows.
blue, green
flowers, holds the Christ child. His
a flock of cloudlike
j.
There, instead of picturing those scenes
customary procession, Matisse chose
to
in the
condense the story
of Christ's Passion in a single dramatic composition. Its terse
symbolism includes,
Christ's face
on
St.
in the
miraculous imprint of
Veronica's kerchief (number 6 ). the
only detailed features represented
in the bold
murals.
.
Vence chapel, the
"n the altar of the
worshiper sees a slender bronze Crucifix (above), flanked by six
Matisse's Christ so stylized
is
tall
candlesticks.
dead, but the sculpture
is
and ethereal that only the limp
arms and drooping head suggest His agony.
On
the viewer's
left as
he faces the altar
(photograph at right), the wooden choir
nuns are
that Matisse designed for the
a secluded alcove for their devotions. artist
arranged the simple stone altar
stalls
set into
The at
an
angle so that the officiating priest faces both
who
the nuns and the lay congregation,
and kneel
stand
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; there are no pews â&#x20AC;&#x201D; in the marble-
body of the church. Behind the nuns'
floored
enclave, nine narrow stained-glass
windows
echo the pointed leaves of the Tree of Life motif in the windows that dominate the chapel wall at the worshiper's
left.
Matisse's accomplishment in the
chapel
is
had never been close
imbued
Vence
the more remarkable since he himself to the
his creation with
Matisse once observed that existed, he
would
Paradise where
160
I
like to
Church. Yet he
an austere joy. if
an
afterlife
think of
it
as "a
would paint frescoes."
161
VIII
The Prophecy Fulfilled
When World War months short of
broke out
II
in
his 70th birthday.
September 1939, Matisse was four
Too
old to take an active part in the
war, he was nevertheless deeply distressed by this third
German
at-
tempt within his own lifetime to overrun his country. The invasion of in
the time, and as the
at
He was living German armies drew nearer the city, he
1940 came as an appalling blow to him.
France Paris
layed his disquiet bv
taking himsell
the
fall
of France, he bore
for
example,
felt
them
night,
former colleagues.
his
\
laminck,
authorized b\ the French collapse to indulge
bursts of anti-Semitism. Detain
was deceived
the movies ever)
for the calamitous years after
as stoicall) as possible.
from several of
In this he differed
to
oil
becoming a compulsive moviegoer. As
into exhibiting his
official visit to Berlin,
in al-
now work
a in
it)
out-
thoroughgoing traditionalist-
German) and
into
making an
on the understanding that by so doing he could se-
cure the release of French prisoners
was ostracized by most
ol
war. For this collaboration he
former friends after the
his
ol
war and ended
1954 he blundered into the path of a passing
his days in obscurity. In
car on the road outside his house near Paris, and died of his injuries.
Matisse could not be gulled into cooperating with the Germans during the occupation, but neither could he be stampeded into
demanding
revenge against the collaborators after France was liberated. "I cannot see," he wrote in the hatched bv one
of his
models, the
fall
of 1944,
when he heard
aged Matisse works with a pair of long-bladed scissors on his colored
paper cutouts.
He was
confined to
bed and w heelchair by a severe intestinal illness, but
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
in
zil,
he wrote Pierre:
of natural forms in bold colors. In
them reimburse my
the last few years of his
serter. If
life
he
elevated this seemingly simple recreation to a form that caught
the fancy of the entire art world.
Vlaminck had
we do." More than once he was urged to go abroad his son Pierre New York was one of many people who would have welcomed him. But he turned down every offer. In 1940, with a visa in his pocket for Bra-
as
continued to
experiment with cut-paper designs
that
been arrested, "why we should torture people because they don't think
"When
ticket.
everyone who
is
I
I
saw everything
realized that
I
in
such a mess
should have
I
felt like a
worth anything leaves France, what
had de-
will re-
main of our country?"
When for Nice
the
Germans entered
Paris in June 1940, Matisse headed back
by a circuitous route. July found him
Gaudens, near the Pyrennees. He had been
in the little in
town of Saint-
poor health for some
163
time, and in Saint-Gaudens he had an attack of enteritis that fdled
him
with foreboding. "I could have died like a rat in a trap.*' he said later, for "the good, sympathetic old doctor
By August he was back
.
.
didn't see what
which cannot
painting. "I await the thunderbolt
was wrong."
come," he wrote
fail to
1941 he was taken to the Clinique du Pare
In January
his son.
.
he simply had no strength to go on
in Nice, but
in
Lyons, where he was operated on twice by one of the greatest surgeons
Europe; Rene Leriche. Matisse came through this operation, but
in
The Dominican sisters who nursed him spoke of him as "the man who came back from the dead.*" The disease had been allowed to spread too far, and one wall of his abdomen was damaged so severely
only just.
that he
would never again be able
minutes
months hope
at
One
a time.
to stand upright for
more than
a few
thing sustained him through the cruel three
the hospital: the thought of his apartment in Nice, and the
in
that he might
one day be permitted
to go
back to
it.
In 1938 Matisse had given up his quarters in the old town of Nice for a suite of
rooms
in
the Hotel Regina, high above the city in the sub-
urb of Cimiez. The Regina had been built
at
Queen
pectation of regular visits from
the turn of the century in exVictoria.
It
had the ample
comforts and majestic proportions typical of grand hotels of that era.
and Matisse,
them
of
it
to his
nurses
Among
a period ol
more than 50
had accumulated and kept with
year-.
the possessions were paintings by Courbet,
casso, an ancient
the wall.
He
of
He
early bronze sculpture, The Serf.
Coromandel lacquerwork from
his
Korean
under
glass
also spoke of a favorite tobacco jar. labeled
al," of the pewter jug that appears in so
own
Cezanne and
[tots
Pi-
Greek statue of Apollo from Delphi and the fragment
\er\ old Oriental carpel that he had framed
ol
small world.
the Lyons hospital, describing to
in
his prized possessions, things he
him over
own
spacious rooms, had recreated his
in his
He often spoke
many told
him of
his
"Tabac Roy-
of his paintings, of his
them about
India, his Vfrican
and Han Dynasty dancing
broideries that reminded
and hung on
figures,
enthusiasm
his collection
masks and
fetishes,
and the Persian em-
lor Islamic art.
some
30 years before. Matisse identified with the furnishings of the places li\e(l
The
glas> case at righl contains
man)
objects that Matisse immortalized painting.
They were
for the Matisse
Among
the pewter jug
ami the beside
tall,
it.
'
I
Cimiez near Nice.
the right
(in
left,
patterned earthenware \ase
them with him
for
even as he moved from place
tall
labeled
lower
the top row
he vase with two large handle*,
the
jar
al
Matisse cherished his artistic
chattels and kept years,
in
(royal tobacco) at
the
collected alter ln^ death
Museum
the most familiar are the
"Tabac Royal
ÂŤil
in his
pi
-i
many
to place.
under
crock appears in a painting that he
executed as early as 1903.
164
to a quite extraordinary degree.
A
in
which he
chair could capture his imag-
weeks on end. He never lorgot the Victorian rocking chair
illation for
room
his hotel
in
or the curved and scrolled red armchair
in Tahiti,
once seen
that he had
in a
house
coast. In 1942 he wrote the poet at
and novelist Louis Aragon of
his joy
acquiring a particular kind of chair, one that he had wanted for a
year. "It
a
is
enamel.
like
.
Venetian Baroque chair, .
When
.
was quite overcome by
met
1
it
it. It is
in
toned with varnish,
silver
it's
an antique shop, a few weeks ago,
splendid.
sometimes harbored as many as 300
company
.
.
who was
On
birds.
his aviaries,
in
low artists to
gift to Pi-
model for Picasso's famous 1949 lithograph. Matisse,
general canny about
"Buy
never regretted
which
occasion he also owned
of free-dying white doves, one of which, given as a
casso, served as the
I
."
one room of the Regina apartment Matisse kept
In
a
French resort on the Atlantic
at a
gold!"),
money
(he was always advising his
was extravagant when
Visitors to his apartment
it.
it came to remember the
fel-
birds and
Bengalis,
the cardinals, the Japanese nightingales, the long black plumage of the
widow
birds, the blinding whiteness of the doves.
Beyond the
aviaries
was
garden
a winter
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; really a small-scale
huge-leaved Tahitian philodendron and a profusion
with
ol
jungle
exotic
shrubs, plants and flowers. Matisse spent a great deal of time tending
them. '"By looking after them," he told one
visitor, "I get to
know the
weight, the needs and the character of every one of them, and that helps
me when
I
come
to
draw them." Students, he observed on an-
other occasion, would do better to spend their time in zoos and botanical
gardens than
schools.
in art
Among
embryonic
learn the secrets of
live plants
and
life,
little
by
and animals "they can acquire that mys-
little
terious fluidr that every authentic artist acquires in the end."
B
M.ii isse
'y
August 1940 Matisse was back
self in the
in this
world he had created for him-
Hotel Regina. Shuffling from room to room
pajamas, he was more chary than ever
ol
in bis tea-planter's
wasting his lime. The outer
at all.
Sometimes he would go down
cluded jungle garden built above the port of
St.
Jean-Cap Ferrat by his
friend Teriade, the publisher of the art periodical
den of the Hotel Regina, where, he is
Iresh, as
they eral
all it
it
him
all
I
erve, or to the gar-
"Everything
the world had just been horn.
shine, they
tired
said,
A
to the se-
is
new
"l<l
studio in the elegant, oldin
Mediterranean blue lew he painted
ol
man)
Nice's Bay of Angels, a tunes.
\rl
u here
sunned the many plants he kept
hi-
In- suite, are
\<>u\ eau railings of his balcony,
reminders
ol his
e\ er\ thing
flower, a leaf, a pebble,
glisten, lustrous, varnished.
to go visiting. His concentration
on
.
.
his
."
But
gen-
in
work was so
sin-
gle-minded that he no longer even enjoyed going over to Roquebrune to see his old friend
Simon Bussy when the Bussys had other
The guests were usually
literary people, "quite a strange
he could not "chat and be intimate
in a circle
in
crowd
guests. to
me";
which no one un-
derstands painting."
Before long he was working as hard as ever, from nine to twelve every morning, seven days of the week, and again
from two
ments
in
until nightfall.
Although
this
the afternoon
was one of the blackest mo-
Europe's history, no one would have guessed
ings. Picasso at the
in
it
from
his paint-
time was complaining of the ever-increasing shortage
of food, and was painting fleshless carcasses. Braque was alluding to
the
rundown condition
Even the
writhing
pattern ami sinuous line. .
Cimiez looks out
over the hotel'- gardens toward the rich
\
world tempted him hardly
-
fashioned Hotel Regina
of his household, and was painting debristled
165
in
love ot complex
—
-
brooms. But Matisse was painting paradise. In these paintings, done be-
tween 1941 and 1943, he seems not
have had a thought
to
yond the balance of a Christmas rose against soiled or
is
worn or
in his
head be-
a saxifrage plant.
Nothing
There are always enough oysters
in short supply.
and oranges, the slipcovers are freshly laundered and the waxed, and beautiful
The a
women
still
a special issue ol
ture a diagram analyzing
away the
color
its
floors freshly
count on owning a new dress.
when Matisse assembled
pictures looked so misleadingly easy that
group of them for
ing
can
he included beside each
erve,
/
pic-
— like a great general in retirement, givmuch
secrets of his strategy. Matisse, however, had not so
—
7
although "arrival was a word that made him shiv= Prison," he wrote in his seventies, "and the artist must never be a prisoner. A prisoner of his own self, prisoner of a way of paint
retired as arrived
*
"Arrival
er.
prisoner of his reputation, prisoner of success, and so on.
ing,
Was
it
who
not the Goncourts
great period changed their like that;
said that the
names
.
.
Japanese painters of the
several times during their lives?
they wanted to safeguard their
.
I
liberties.""
Matisse never changed his name, but he did repeatedly change his
way of painting and
his reputation,
about
to start
of life, or
another
work on the position had
scale of Tintoretto.
come
Matisse expressed his foot rug.
"Mimosa."
arl
is
if
to stand at an easel,
didn't
the idea
caughl and reflected
motif, based
in pile
carpets
and he attacked the
a \\a\
a large scale,
M.
leanwhile, destiny intervened
fling as
such things go,
was advised
spring,
is
on the golden plumes of blossom
mimosa
trees in the Ki\ iera's early
surrounded
h\ bine, gra)
designs on a ground of rectangles
and black
in
various
shades of red. Only a limited number of these brilliant rugs
ol
planning to
sense. Hut Matisse be-
painting a large-scale comto act
upon the
masters of what we do," he once said, "what we
and somehow he would
in his life in
to
it
was expected
Allies.
lulfill
it.
were made. Not surprisingh
Nice. This was to be his
little
home
the raid was
— to
many. Matisse
a small villa called
town of Vence. up
in
Le
the hills behind
for six years.
Le Reve was too small to accommodate a large-scale project, and
any case the war was encroaching upon setting. In the spring of
tri-
his life in
in
ways that were most up-
1944 he received word that
Madame
Matisse
.
most of them are displayed as wall hangings rather than used on the floor.
Reve on the outskirts of the
quite another way. In
Though
to be the first of
decamp, and decamp he did
commission enthusiastically. His central
that cover
make
would be lound
March 1943 Cimiez was bombed by the
he had framed and hung several old Persian rugs like paintings
had the whole
the three-h\ -h\e
Matisse had long been fascinated In the way is
I
am
that he designed for the
American firm of Alexander Smith Carpets.
light
if
I
imposed upon us." Destiny had imposed upon him the duty of
once again working on
« hich
in
is
It
to him, then
idea. "\\ c arc not the
the most unusual forms
1943 there were intimations
before me," he told Louis Aragon. Here was Ma-
life,
lieved in historical inevitability:
Among
in
working on large-scale compositions, as
pushing 71 and unable even
tisse,
do
and
he was about to do so again. "All the signs indicate that
that
and
his
daughter
Madame
Both had been working for the French Resistance,
in different places.
and were arrested passing ticular
it
Duthuit had been taken prisoner separately,
for
on where
it
knowing what they should not have known and could do most good. Marguerite Duthuit
had a very bad time of
it.
in par-
She was tortured by the Gestapo and
put on a prison train headed for the concentration
camp at Ravensbruck.
Luckily an Allied air raid prevented the train from reaching
its desti-
nation, and eventually Madame Duthuit found her way back to Paris. Madame Matisse was sentenced to six months in prison in Troyes. "I am hoping," wrote Matisse to his old friend Charles Camoin, "that the
three
166
months of arrest
will
count
in
her sentence."
At the same time he worried about his son Jean, living just outside Paris in Vanves.
"He
me no news
."
.
.
lives in the
wrote Matisse. Although Jean's silence did not ex-
actly surprise him, "for
ents, but
was very slack
almost a
in
suburb so badly bombed, and he gives
month
the
I
was
like
him when young ...
in writing," still
month
of the
hen, in August 1944, Vence itself
my
par-
he had not heard from his son
Normandy
T
loved
I
invasion.
the effects of the war.
felt
When
the Allies landed a second invasion force on the Mediterranean coast be-
tween Marseilles and Nice, three stray shells the middle of the night.
in
He was
not unduly distressed. "I
into a comfortable shelter trench in the garden, in for
36 hours
home went down
near Matisse's
fell
quite undisturbed,'' he wrote.
I
remained
gave him a chance to
It
read the philosophy of Henri Bergson, "which
which
I
had only skimmed
at
home, distracted by the drawings and paintings on the walls around
me." Matisse's keepsake from bol of peace, shell
this experience
was an olive twig, sym-
which was blown through the window by the exploding
and landed beside
his bed.
At Vence, Matisse found a new project to occupy his mind. Ever since his hospital stay at Lyons he had wanted
a chapel for the
Order
the road from his
fire.
By
villa at
skill. Initially
headquarters
Vence there was
and the chapel of
valid girls, a
at its
this
a curious coincidence
was one of
his
to express his
who had nursed him back
gratitude to the Dominican nuns
with such exemplary care and
somehow
a
at
Gramond. But
Dominican
home had
to health
he had thought of building
rest
just across
home
for in-
recently been destroyed in
one of the nuns attached
to the
home
former nurses from Lyons, Sister Jacques. In a modest
way she too was an
artist,
and one day on
Reve she
a visit to Le
brought with her a sketch for a stained-glass window for the new chapel.
Matisse became interested, and before long
should design the new building. A Dominican
it
was agreed
monk
with
that he
some
The
1 1
1
1
1
Utlrirh Rockefeller Memorial
Alil>\
Window â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
.
in
\ru
Union Church of Pocantico
the
^ (irk. is
work. Working
arhis
model
in
Matisse's
last
completed
Nice with paper cutouts as
window, the
for the stained-glass
chitectural training. Brother Rayssiguier, acted as his consultant on
aged
both structural and liturgical matters, and Auguste Perret, dean of mod-
blues and greens to suggest the idea of light
ern French architects, also provided some advice.
as the
Fundamentally,
artist
combined white and
soft yellows,
prime creator. Matisse was absorbed,
he wrote, "by the challenge to express myself
however, the Chapelle du Rosaire belongs
to Matisse.
in a
The chance to put art into the mainstream of life has tempted many modern painters to accept large-scale commissions for public buildings, but few have done so successfully. Picasso will not be his
murals for the
LINESCO
remembered
for
League of Nations building
In their eagerness, they tried too hard,
in
my
composition not only with the
form of the actual framework but also with the atmosphere of the chapel"
architectural drawings that were sent to him.
Geneva.
and the results often turned out
to be inflated versions of their easel paintings, not suited to the task at
hand. Matisse made no such mistake. The Vence chapel
any of
his other work.
With
his
it
stead he
made the Vence chapel
Many
its
ters into the chapel
a
space as large as
vibrate like a steel mill in wartime. In-
dismayed.
of
quite unlike
unequaled mastery of opulent color
and complicated design, he could easily have taken
Grand Central Station and made
is
so
modest that some
visitors are
surfaces are unadorned white, and the light that
through
tall,
narrow windows
is
for
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; a building he
knew only from the photographs and
building in Paris, nor will Bonnard and Vuil-
lard for their decorations in the
defined and limited space, and to
harmonize
fil-
most of the
day pale and diffused.
167
made
Typically, Matisse
many
a great
preliminary sketches for the
chapel, and the progress of these sketches
from turbulent
to simple,
-
fW*
many
to few.
The design
to tranquil,
for the
invariably from complex
is
from particular
windows began
to general,
as an ecstatic
from
Heavenly
Jerusalem and ended as a serene Tree of Life; the Stations of the Cross
was originally
a richly detailed
costume drama, but the
design
final
is
a
black-and-white drawing that looks like the urgent notes of an eyewitness
The
to Christ's passion.
which Matisse
floor,
with rosettes outlined in red, in the end
marble with small squares of black
is
at first
meant
composed of
set into the corners.
ornament
to
slabs of white
Even the num-
ber of windows was reduced by four from the original count of 19. Matisse
was everywhere out
A,
A
to dematerialize.
sight the chapel
first
seems
a place full of color, but in fact the
only color comes from the stained-glass windows. Matisse, a master coloring
Even the wall decorations lor the Chapel of the
cnce, Matisse also designed
bright chasubles
Rosary
mass.
He worked
with paper cutouts (shown
on his studio wall above and below), basing
\\
hen Picasso saw them he was so struck by
the brilliant colors tbat he suggested Matisse
design capes for bullfighters.
it
man, halfway
those qualities precisely. But
it
to paradise.
"A Painter's Notes" The chapel exemplifies
in
also exemplifies an unfeigned humility.
Matisse did not want to make the building simply a work of
wanted that he
to
make
it
a
to return to the
Not everyone was pleased. "Very pretty, very gay," said
into power, we'll turn
olic writer
S
God." Matisse himself
my
it
into a
Henri Daniel-Rops
"The Christian," he wrote,
ES
art,
love of the
work
he also
working chapel. Some people concluded from
had abandoned the attitudes of a lifetime
I
dance hall." But the eminent Cath-
"finds here nothing between himself and
have to do,
I
his friend
sure the chapel was an act of faith.
"The only
settled the matter.
that
of absolute sincerity.
felt
this
Church.
"When we
Louis Aragon, a Communist, after examining the model.
come
just this
is
not the expression of a
is
of an art of "balance, purity and serenity."
their motifs on traditional religious images
crosses, star-, palm fronds and natural forms.
at all;
Nearly 50 years before, Matisse had spoken
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; the simple hooded outer
garments worn by priests when celebrating
no physical existence
great artist at play, but of a great
some 20
blue, constantly in motion.
an incorporeal quality. The chapel
glass itself has
side of having
No1 content merely to create windows and
at \
surfaces, has here filled an interior space with wraiths of
flat
phantoms of yellow and green and
color,
at
my
made the chapel
religion
I
love of creation, and
to express
have
my
is
love
myself completely,
and for no other reason."
a
E3
One
of the things that most delighted Matisse about the chapel was
the color
the
way
it
moved around, changed with
its
own
on
a winter's morning.)
life.
(It
was
at its
to let color fly free, as a pigeon flies it
some middle way
and household objects on
pers, painted
o'clock
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; a way
from the hand? There was indeed
had been right under Matisse's nose for some time.
In 1941 he had pinned colored papers to a canvas to create a fruit
1 1
Nothing quite comparable could be done with
paints and canvas, but surely there might be
such a way, and
the weather, lived
sharpest and finest, he thought, at
a table.
still life
Then he had drawn on the
of
pa-
them, and stretched two lengths of string across the top
and bottom of the canvas
to indicate the table. In
no time
at all
and
with nothing, or almost nothing, he had created an image that nor-
mally he would have toiled over for a
month or more. His
done the drawing, the color remained
free
firm as
168
if
it
scissors had
and the composition was as
had been elaborately worked out with
paint.
Matisse did not turn exclusively to this new kind until he
went hack
But he did use
it
to the Hotel in
lustrated hooks: Jazz.
the I
Regina
meantime
Cimiez
in
at
picture-making
ol
the end of the war.
most fateful of
for the
idike the other books for
his
all
il-
which he had provided
only pictures. Jazz contained text supplied by Matisse himself. The
words' meaning was secondary, for their principal function was purely visual.
They were, he
accompaniment
said, a restful
to the colors in
the pictures, serving the same purpose as "a small bunch of asters in a
bouquet of grander flowers." For the pictures he drew upon ories of the circus,
memories of
brilliantly colored fantasies.
his
memories of travel"
folk-tales,
"mem-
to create
"The Cowboy." for instance (page I 71). is a man and horse are joined together
fantasy of violent action in which
by an imperious
lariat.
doomed aeronaut
falls
is
Matisse's
observed
The
first
"Icarus"
is
a fantasy of disaster in
which the
through anight sky starred with yellow. "Lagoon"
reference, after 20 years, to the underwater
life
he had
in Tahiti.
for the book. Jazz,
title
was chosen because
tures' discordant cross-rhythms, but
it
happened
also
chosen mode of expression. He wanted
to jot
down
neously, in the same quicksilver, elliptical way they
he wanted to improvise cross-references
suited the pic-
it
to suit Matisse
-
his ideas sponta-
came
to him,
and
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; relating one shape to another
on the spur of the moment. Scissors and paper provided the answer.
The designs he
sent to the printer were
sheets of paper colored in advance w
it
I or
he
when he entered
of the shapes was drawn in the conventional sense;
was done with
he
his studio.
all
the work
scissors.
Matisse. Jazz was a liberation.
felt,
into large
h watercolors so brilliant that his
doctor recommended he wear dark glasses
None
made by cutting
When
said, like a sculptor cutting into
he cut into the pure color marble.
The
crisp liveliness, a delight in short cuts and epigrams lor free to be satirical
pictures had a I
lie
eye; he was
and unpredictably inventive. Jazz also freed him
to
when he could no longer work at the easel. When that dreaded day came, there would still be a way he could make pictures perface the day
haps even the big pictures he had mentioned to Louis Aragon.
On December utes,
31, 1949. Matisse was 80. a suitable occasion for trib-
and many were forthcoming. But often the) carried
looking, valedictory note. Matisse was
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;pictures of languorous odalisques
rooms
known in
a
backward-
best for his Nice paintings
high-ceilinged Mediterranean
and these were now associated with what people considered
frivolous era in French
life.
a
Matisse was regarded, quite unjustly, as
the Boucher or Fragonard of a ruling class that had put self before country
and had gone down forever
ill,
and
it
in
1939. Besides, he was said to be very
was known that he could no longer
most unlikely that Matisse could be expected of
sit at
to
his easel.
It
seemed
produce anything more
much consequence. Visitors to the Hotel Regina did indeed find the artist propped
up
in
bed, unable even to perambulate the miniature forest in which he had
once taken such pride. But Matisse was not inactive. The walls of his bed-
room were covered from
floor to ceiling with
forms cut out of colored
169
Sometimes they were
paper.
on the
wall,
"Now den
that
I
fixed to canvas,
sometimes they were tacked
sometimes they dangled down and don't often get up," he said, "I've
to go for walks in. Everything's there
..."
a bird or two.
Above
—
fruit
on the
his head,
onto the
trailed
made myself
floor.
a little gar-
and flowers and leaves, he had drawn
ceiling,
some larger-than-life-size women's heads in charcoal: "They keep me company too," he said. "It was no trouble ... I had someone tie the charcoal to the end of that fishing rod over there, and then
I
went
to
work." Matisse had
— ever
known about
Now, suddenly, handicap off
these alternatives to easel painting for years
since he had prepared the mural for the Barnes Foundation.
— his
in his 80s,
he realized that they could help him turn a
physical condition
from the paints and brushes
— into
an advantage. Bedridden, cut
had been mastered only after a
that
time of work, he could have foundered
in self-pity
earned idleness. Instead he went on working as hard as ever, and last five
years of his
younger
artists all
The mechanics
re-invented for himself a
life
way
that
over the world were to adopt after his death. of this
method were
fairly simple:
Matisse had sheets
that
was half-drawing, half-sculpting.
them with
When
he had the
exact forms he wanted, he told an assistant where to put them; all
the
in
way of painting
of paper painted under his direction, and then cut into
shears in a
life-
or settled for a hard-
the pieces of paper were placed to his liking, he had
onto canvas. The result was
when
them fastened
art of a peculiarly exhilarating sort.
Some-
times the cut-paper compositions were related to his earlier work,
sometimes not. In them, for instance, he flowing
movement
of the
human body
finally perfected the effortless
in action, a
movement he had
been striving for ever since the Dance mural for Shchukin, back 1909.
No
in
painting of bodies in motion was ever as convincing as the cut-
paper bodies in The
more than 50
Swimming
feet long.
Pool, a huge,
panoramic composition
These bodies have the relaxed power of great jun-
gle cats: looking at their
contours
it
clear
is
what Matisse meant when
he referred to his cut papers as carvings.
It
is
an extraordinary experience
big cut-paper pictures.
agery. In
all
black
is,
first
of
all,
in
front of one of these
the sheer size of the im-
but a few of his previous works, Matisse had concentrated
upon nuances of scale.
There
to stand
line
and color; here he
Nothing he had done before
women,
is
is
concentrating upon physical
anything
this sea siren stranded in the
like these elongated
topmost branches of a trop-
ical forest, this sailboat
scudding beneath lavender-edged clouds, these
swimmers kicking
way
their
—
like so
many
porpoises
— half-in, half-out
of a band of pellucid water. Matisse's shears cut into his imagination as well as into the paper.
These enormous pictures are
sighs of exhilaration as Matisse at last sighted the
like
enormous
Promised Land: the
complete simplification of painting. In the cut papers Matisse finally realized the ideal of pure color that
had been glimpsed by the Impressionists, analyzed by the fought for by the Fauves, and exploited by the
Here was color on
170
its
own
German
Pointillists,
Expressionists.
— pure untrammeled, uncompromising — com-
manding attention to get
it.
and for
in itself
itself.
put himself through a symbolic ordeal, that
Matisse gave up a great deal
Like Tamino, the hero of Mozart's opera
had carried him through
I
he Metric Flute, he
abandoned almost
all
the things
he renounced the orthodox ways of
life:
managing paint and canvas, the minute and loving preparation of composition, the subtleties of tone, the indications of space
doing so he discovered that "the energy within you ever for being held back, compressed, and said
work successfully, he added, '*you
No
and
scale. In
stronger than
is
to." But to make
it
also have to have a long previous ex-
perience, and that experience must not have blunted your instincts." In his late 80s Matisse Life
was
still
the same
man who had
and Dance and Music, the Pink \ude and Large Red
saw no point
in
repeating them.
the frontier into a
He was
like a traveler
new country, leaving
who changed
the Japanese painters
their
down by what they had done in the were the work of a man very near from the springtime of
life.
All
his baggage
names
past.
tin
1
is
in
behind
one day
like
The cut-paper compositions
some way indebted
set right.
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; or
so as not to be weighed
death, but they were like signals
if
garded as the work most worth looking will
But he
over the world they were taken up as sym-
painter other painters needed. But
time
Interior.
<>/
who had crossed
bols of absolute purity and claritv. Every painter today
simply and directly
painted Joy
who
uses color
at, this is a
work
is
he was
now
re-
misconception that
For Matisse was always a painter to watch,
vember
3,
still
to take the lull
measure of what
1954, the heart of Henri Matisse
came
it
lost
to a stop.
when on No-
favorite cloves,
i
lie
82-
1951. rhis superb photograph of the
bespectacled old master was
made
!i\
the greal
French photojournalist Henri CartierBresson. Photographer ami painter became ÂŁ;(](kI
in
and the world has
ol his
year-old Matisse relaxes in his Nice apartment
m
to Matisse: at 80.
this last dazzling
Sketching one
I
ii
friends,
and one
ink illusl ration
ol
Matisse's
was the design
covers for Cart ier-Bresson
s
lasl efforts
"I (lie
collection
(if
photographs called The Derisive Moment.
171
A,
man
seem
to be frittering
ji old
cutting up brightly colored paper might
away
his final years with the pastimes
of a child. Yet colored paper and scissors in the hands of
one old man
— Henri Matisse — produced great
Matisse's colored paper cutouts
own
sunlight; their
artist that
seem
wry simplicity
they provide a
fitting
is
art.
Carving with Color
to generate their
so typical of the
conclusion to his lifework.
Matisse came upon colored cutouts almost by accident. In the 1930s he had used paper models to help design his paintings,
moving them around on
his canvases to
Then
find the perfect
placement of
when he was 72
years old, a serious intestinal illness and
two complicated operations
Propped up
rest of his life.
figures.
left
him an
in his bed,
in 1941,
invalid for the
he began to make
cutouts because he could no longer paint
at
an
easel.
But they became more than a simple substitute for painting.
"To
cut right into color
makes me think of a
sculptor's carving into stone," he wrote of his
Using his scissors as he might a
human
chisel, Matisse
new
art.
carved
found expression figures, leaves, flowers
arabesques.
He then
and
fish,
and imaginative
placed the cutouts on white or
multicolored backgrounds, manipulating them until they
harmonized.
Some
stood as completed pictures; others tiles,
stained-glass windows,
posters and magazine covers. All are charged with
Matisse's clarity of vision; they remain the final
monuments
to a master of design
and
color.
in this
paper
cutout of a female nude, done
1950 when the a huge picture
high
were models for decorative
172
Matisse's quest for simplicity
—
its
artist
was 81.
in
It is
— almost eight
feet
character reflecting
Matisse's admiration of prehistoric
and primitive
art,
whose
bold,
abstract qualities had long
fascinated him.
Zulma, 1950
173
i
M
riad
latis.-t
years, but
it
called Jazz, that
he proved he had mastered this new
collection of abstracted colored cutouts like those
his
It
is
a
shown
includes a text written by Matisse and printed in
own commanding longhand
script.
The
to the cutouts, consists of gentle truths
about art and
life;
chatty but incisive,
text, unrelated
and observations
it is
intended
mainly to provide the viewer's eyes with a rest from the dazzling art.
About the book
itself,
Matisse wrote,
"The
images, in vivid and violent tones, have resulted from crystallizations in
'The Cowl
memories of the
music
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; thus the
circus, popular tales,
lines,
volumes, colors were put together, and then the
whole thing collapsed, one part destroying another. It is
however beautiful; the colors
also have to react to
another. Otherwise, cacophony results. color that distinguishes
all
.
paper, created his
own
.
.
."
.
And
one it
is
his cutouts. Matisse,
dissatisfied with the limitations of
enter his
-om Jazz
.
not enough to put colors against one another,
he became aware of an
lyrical quality
simple, but
Matisse explained, "Sometimes the difficulties appeared:
brilliant that his
between the
of his book.
the technique of creating them was excruciatingly exact.
or travel." These were his inspirations, but as he worked affinity
title
The cutouts themselves appear deceptively
art
form. Jazz, which took about three years to complete,
here.
of his pictures and the soaring improvisations of jazz
experimented with cutouts for several
was not until 1947, when he published a book
commercial colored
painted papers with hues so
doctor warned the ailing
workroom without wearing dark
artist
not to
glasses.
the
The Toboggan," from Jazz
175
Chris/mas \ight, 1952
176
Ivy
Ihc Ihe papercutout isthe simplest and most
direct
way
[I
have found] of expressing myself up to now," Matisse said of his innovation. Delighting in this discovery, he his later years with a whirlwind of
new
projects. His
on the
eighties.
rise,
Using
tapestries,
rather than an established master in his
his paper-cutout
massive ceramic
tiles
and Mr. and Mrs. Albert
So popular did the Matisse cutouts become the Paris
Museum
of
Modern
that in 1949
Art devoted an entire
exhibition to them, arousing an enthusiastic interest that
soon led to other shows around the world. In 1953, just a
technique he designed
year before he died, he completed The Parakeet and the
and fanciful wall
Siren (following pages), a gigantic composition about 12 by
decorations; he was particularly fond of making models for stained-glass
Inc. ( left)
Flower. 1953
D. Lasker (above).
filled
ambitions, plans and energies seem appropriate to a young artist
commissioned by Time
111
windows. The two shown here were
25
feet that takes
cutouts to dizzying heights of joy,
lvricism and color orchestration.
177
VERVE, NO. 35/36
178
178
fmm
The Parakeet and the
Siren,
1952
^1
*>'
i
ivl
latisse
apartment
his
in
Nice
remained active until the day he died,
although during his
last
two years he was confined
mostly to his bed (above). There,
in his Riviera
quarters, a scarf around his neck, wearing a faded
gray sweater and peering through gold-rimmed glasses, he his bed,
it
was often
before one of his i
I
When
worked.
to
last
sit
cutouts, a
for either a stained-glass (left).
He was
too
he was allowed to leave in a special chair placed
weak
mammoth
design
window or a ceramic mural
to rise,
and
after
he cut
his
figures or arabesques from the colored paper, he would tell his secretary, Lydia Delektorskaya, where to place each one.
model
To
alter his routine,
he might
returning to the medium he Or he would draw while in bed, fixed to the end of a long bamboo
in clay (right),
understood so well. his charcoal pencil
pole. In this way,
on paper pinned
he completed many large sketches
to the walls, as well as simple line
drawings made directly on his walls and ceiling.
Surrounded as he was by the faces he had drawn, Matisse said in his
last
days, "I
am never alone."
The aged Matisse works on
183
a clay model.
APPENDIX
Chronology: Artists of Matisse's Era 1975
1900
1825
1825
AUSTRIA
FRANCE PIERRE PU VIS DECHA\ VNNES
WILL1AM-ADOLPHE BOI
GUSTAVE MOREA1
EDGAR DEGAS
(.1
SW PA
1840-1916
I
Kl
PABLO
1840-1926
l\
I
1
18791010
IE
P
W
Jl
1848-190$
I
lASSO
IRIS
N
J<
\RISTIDEMAILLOI
HENRI DETOI PIERRE
I8(
3-1935 SE-1
BOW \1
tt
M TREC
5
CEORGESROI
VI II
VLAMINCK
1876-1958
1885-1911
1885-1962
1)1
BALTHl
1815-1926
ILBERTRYDER
1847-191/
CHILDEHASSAM
1887-1968
1
ROBERT HENRI
1901-
fflASAR
KLOSSOW*
NICHOLAS DESTAEI
1914-
ITM.\
187)0.1925
180.-,.
1861-1021
1020
JOHN MARIN
1870-1953
JOHN SLOAN
1871-1951
MARSDEN IARTLEH
CARLOCARRA
HANS HCFMANN
1881-1966
MBERTOBOCCION] G1NOSEVERIN1
MAXtt
I882-19K
1881-1920
KIAV \R
1888-
CHARL
CIORGIODECHIRICO CIO IC10 MORANDI
KJBER
1877-1913 1880-1966
18811961
GEORGE BELLOWS
1883-1966
VMEDE)M0DICLIANI
)
1882-1925
HOPPER
;s
18821907
DEMI HI
MA IlkTOBKY 1847-1 >35
LOVISCORINTH
18.
EMILNOI.DE
8 1925
FRANZ M \RC
1
1894-1964
MARKROTHKO
ECKEL
UJCUBTMACKE
CLYFFORD STILL DA\
SMITH
1904-
1904-
1906-1965 1010-1962
JACKSON POLLOCK 10121956
FF 188.11976
ROBERT MOTHERWELL
1887-1914
IASPERJOHNS
1895-1946
1900
1975
successors arc
1915
ROBERT RAUSCHENBERl
1887-lous
LASZLO MOHOLY-NAGY
and
II)
FRANZKUNE
1884-1950
\RLBCHWITTERS
1904-1948
WILLEMDE KOONING
1883-1970
KARL iCHMIDTROTTLI
1898-1976
1903-1970
ARSHILEGORKY 1880-1938
1881-1955
MAXBRjCKMANN
Matisse's predecessors, contemporaries
1893-1965
STUART DAVIS
1880-1916
PEC1HSTE1N
ERICH
MILTON AVERY
1871-1956
ERNST LI BWIC KIRCIINER
MAX
1883-1965
1890-1976
ALEXANDER CALDER
1956
IS
LYONELFE1N1 M,ER
1883-1935
CHARLfCSSHEEI.ER
1890-1964
GERMANY MAX LIEBERMANN
1894-191.1
59-1935
MAI RICE PKENDE ICAS1
18%.
S (BAI
1889
TINE
1844-I9K
MARYCASSATT
JOHN SINGER SARGEKVI
K1EI
1(1
MM SOI
18361910
THOMAS EAKINS
1883-1955
AMDREMASSON
1878-1935
CHAGALL
I
18871966
JEW
1871-1957
:
t
NITED STATES WTNSLOW" HOMER
1801-1911
1866-1944
ALEY ICH
MA
1882-1963
MARC-XDUCHAMP
\M) Klss|\
N-kl
FRANK Kl PK\
1881-1955
I.IIOTE
I)
CASIMIH
DEl.M'NMr
IRP
KW
1880-1954
MAI RICEUTRILLO
1825
VSSILY
18791953
CEORCEiBRAQUE
JEW
tt
1877-1953
FERNAN 1LECER
1909-
1863-1944
>PE
ALEXEIVONJAfl LENSKY
1876-1947
FRANCIS 1'ICABIA
iHERtl
MUNCH EASTERN El R
EDV \RD
1871-1958
IHR\I\
1898-
SCANDINAVIA
1876-1957
1
1894-
HENRY MOORE
SI
I)
I.DI
1904-
FRANCISBACON
CONSTANTIJN BRANCI
WDRF.
1870-1959
BtN NICHOLSON
1870-1943
VLBERTMAfiQI El
WDKE
1860-1942
SMITH
1868-1940
1869-1954
MAI BICE DEN
VIM KICK
jICKERT
MATTHE
1869-19
HENRIMATISSE
I
1893-
MTER RICHARD
1864-1901
1867-1947
HEARD
ISVALTAT
RAO!
MIRO
ENGLAND
1944
1861
1.0
EDOI IRDV1 l.OI
1881-197.!
1887-1927
SALV MIORDALI
GEORGES SEURA'l
PAULSICNAC
1872-1944
ZK RLAND
II
SPAIN
1840-1917
STE RENOIR
LGAl Gl
1886-
1800.1918
853-1890
PIETMONDR AN
1839-1906
DEMONET
l'\l
VINCENT VAN GOGH
1834-1917
UJCUSTERODIN
KOKOSCHKA \ SCHIEII
i
HOLLAND
1830-1903
ODILON REDON
PIERRE-A1
EG
1832-1883
LCEZANNE
21918
1
OSKA
II
18261808
EDO! VRD MANET
CLAI
CUSTAVKLIMT
1824-1I89J
EREAU
CI
CAM ILLE PISS ARRO
PA1
1975
I'llKl
1825
1900
grouped chronologically by country. The bands correspond
1930
1975 to the artists' lifespans
—
Bibliography MATISSE
HIS
Paperback
in
*Muller, Joseph-Emile, Fauvism. Frederick A. Praeger. Publishers, 1967.
WORK
\xn
IN
I
* Available
Rewald, John. Post-Impressionism From Mhcrt C, ami Violette de Mazia, The
Barnes,
In oj Henri
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The Barnes
Matisse.
Mired M., Matisse: His in and His Public. The Museum of Modern \n. 1951.
Diehl, Gaston, Henri Matisse.
orksoj Matisse. Verve, Pans. 1958.
II
I
Raymond,
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I
Portrait oj
I
he
ami
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The
uiwtmIn
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50 Years
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lit.
I lie 1
Brown and Co Company. Im
hint Hose. Little.
Braziller, Inc.,
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M
\XI> UlslOKIc
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Praeger, Publishers, 1967.
\.
Geneva. 1959. \\ illiam S.,
The
edition).
Praeger. Publishers, 1965.
\.
Expressionist 1'nintini;.
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Lieberman,
Gauguin (second
to
Man. Translated by Ger-
the
M. Colvile. Frederick A. Praeger, Publishers. I960.
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Selz, Peter.
mi Gogh
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lutobiography oj
1956.
Marchiun. Giuseppe, row
&
Monroe.
\\ lieelcr.
um
Modern
oi
Reynal
Matisse.
& Compan)
in
association with William Mor-
EXHIBITION
\
i
I
\lni.l
l-.s
Co., Inc. Amilcare Pizzi, Italy.
Francisco
he
I
l.nsi
Art in collaboration «itli
Museum of Art,
lie
I
of Chicago and the San
\rl Institute
Museum
The Cone Collection (revised edition). The Baltimore
Large Cut Gouaches. The Muse-
orksoj Henri Matisse
II
W illiams
Henri Matisse. Texts b\ Jean Leymarie, Herbert Read,
1961.
lished with the cooperation of the L'CL.A Art Council.
Henri Matisse, Crespelle, Jean-Paul, The Finn is tut liinl.
New York Graphic Society, 1962. Painters. The Documents ol Modern
Georges. The Fauvist
Lawrence Cowing. The Museum of Modern
Paintings. Text b)
>>l
Art.
Art. \\ ittenborn,
1869-1954. A retrospective exhibition
Matisse:
Havward
the
at
The
Gallery.
\ri-
Council of Great Britain. 1968.
Haftmann, Werner, Alfred Hentzen and
Andrew
Twentieth Century. Edited bv
\\ illiam S.
C. Ritchie.
Hamilton. George Heard. Painting and Sculpture
Lieberman, German
The Museum
in
In o]
\eo-Impressionism. Texl b) Holier! L. Herbert.
thi
Modern \rt. 195 Europe: I88Q-1940. The Pelican ol
he Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum,
I
1968.
i
)m/N
Ferment: The liinh
oj
sored b)
History ol Art Series. Penguin Books. Inc. 1967.
UCLA
Sen ml and the Science oj Painting M.I.I. Press. 1964.
\\ illiam I..
Lieberman. Pub-
niversity ol California
I
1966.
Schultz, Inc., 1950.
Homer.
12. 1968.
S.
Pros. 1966
VRT-HISTORICAL HAl KGROI NO
I
of Art, 1967.
Fauves and Expressionists. Leonard Hutton Galleries, April 18-June
he UC1
i
Twentieth Century in. 1886-191
<>/
\n Council
\
collaboration «
in
ith
An
1.
UCI
the
\
exhibition spon-
\n
Galleries.
The
Art Council. 1965.
Picture Credits lor I he illustrations in this hool,
The sources All the
work-
in this
book and the works
Rouault, Paul Signac and Maurice de Vlaminck on pages are published In arrangement with
The works
lor pictures from Uji to right are separated ii semi* ohms, /ruin top to bottom
appear below Credits
Henri Matisse that appear
ol
SPADEM,
In
Manpiel. \ndre Dcraiu and
23,
12,
II.
ol
15,
In and His
Georges
\
1
1
>< rl
French Reprodui lion Rights,
Inc.
1951.
81
SanFraiiciscoMiiseuin.il
LeeBoltin.
85
Lee Boltin.
90.01
DmitriKessel.
Art.
\.Y.
Courtes) Yale
112.113
J.
Simon, Ins 10 chapter I: 6 Philadelphia Museum ol \n. 9 Edd) van der Veen. Sludio Madonnes Musee Matisse. Nice-Cimiez. dio Madonnes. I
Pierre Boulat.
I
—Alain Danvers—Yves Debraine. Crandall for Time.
CHAPTER
28
2:
26,
Lee
27— Lee
Studio Madonnes;
Veen.
33
tures.
37—Carlton
24, 25
Derek Bayes
Pierre Boulat.
46.17
zerland.
chapter
3:
Madonnes.
32
31.
of
Modern
John Hay Whitney.
II
Frank Lerner.
12.
GMBH.
64,
Offenburg
Solomon
R.
ol
\rl
62
65
23
36
Co.
15
tm.
CulverPici
HAPTER tisse"
\ri Institute
R.
83
for Time.
Museum
ol
©Museum
\rl
(21
87.88,
of Modern
Vrts,
Copenhagen.
Library.
ui\ersit\
107
Museum
of
Modern
diversity ol (California. Los Angeles,
I
Brian Heseltine.
108
111.115
for Time.
Courtes) Pierre
94
©
100
109,
III
110,
Lee Boltm.
Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Norton
\11geles.
116
\
©
122
.1
.
.
\\
at
\
Museum
t
130.
135
131.
130 through 139 I
©
131
1936.
I
123
Courtesy
128
Sotheby
©Museum
of
&
Mod-
1909 In the Barnes Foundation, Merion, PennsylJacques Mer from Rapho Guillumette
133
Museum
ol
bottom
Art
right.
(2)
Lee Bol-
ee Boltin. I
© Museum
Ill
Collection Kees van Don-
120
N.Y.
\rl.
Studio Madonnes.
Baltimore
Lee Bollui.
10
Modern 125
Derek Bayes.
132
LeeBoltin
119
.
of
Helene Want.
121
7;
hue
ol
1
From: Cuhiers
12
of
Modern
«/'
In.
Art, N.Y.
"Dessins de Henri MaCourtes) Steuben
146
119 From: "MinoNew York. 117 Private Collection, New York. taure" no. 9 Deuxieme Serie, October. 1936 Albert Skira. Editeur. by Minotaure 151.152.153 ©Museum of Modern Art. N.Y. 151.155 1936. \rt Institute 158 Ken Kay of Chicago photo. 156. 157 Robert Capa from Magnum. 159 ParisMatch Paris Match from Pictorial Parade. Helene Vdant. 160, 161 Glass,
©Novosti Press Agency. 53-55 NationalGal56 The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. 59 N.Y. 61 From the Collection of Mr. and Mrs.
—
\rl.
—
Derek Bayes; Late Gallery. London.
Vu
York; Editions Ides
,-t
63- Courtes)
Calendres, Neuchatel.
Burda Druck und Verlag,
66
Foundation Bucheim, Feldafing.
67-
llein de
Bouter
The
Guggenheim Museum.
71
Eyerman
Derek Bayes.
photo; Mr. Samuel JosefowitZ, Swit
—Cliche Musees Nationaux.
Isaacs.
R.
ern Art. N.Y.
der
Reproduced b)
13 II.
van
Baltimore
from Pictorial Parade; Helene Adant. i
Museum
of Art.
76
From
Matisse: His
162
iiu'iii<8: 1
1
sheil In
Morrow. 167
CHAPTER 4: 68 Lee Boltin. 70 Courtesy John W. Dodds. 71— Man Ray. 72 San Francisco Museum of Art, permanent collection. 73— Courtesy John W. Dodds; Robert
Modern
©
50
the Leonard Hutton Galleries. Switzerland.
Edd)
©Museum of Modern Art, N.Y.
Museum
Washington. D.C.
© Museum
gen.
Giraudon.
48—Lee Boltin.
lery of Art,
12
vania.
Sludio
Studios Ltd.
Metropolitan
iiiM-iiiiO;
Dmitri Kessel; Robert
courtesy of the Trustees of the National Gallery, London. of Chicago
Stu-
Boltin.
30
Boltm.
22
Lee Boltin.
21
Pierre Boulat.
15
J.
Baltimore
Institute of Chicago;
Studio Madonnes.
105
Norton Simon Collection.
New York
for Time. Private Collection,
Eyerman
82 \rt:
Bottom: ©Novosti Press Agency.
86
The Art
Museum
Royal
''2
07
Matisse.
FRONT END papers— Private Collection, New York.
Eyerman
DerekBayes.
81
Lee Boltin.
chapter5:
R.
of
\n. N.Y.
Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Norton Simon, Los Vngeles.
J.
Museum
published In the
Jr..
II
New York,
ernArt,
\\ ussily
89
back end papers
by dashes
\rl.
Rights, Inc.
slipi \si
Barr
II.
Hessisehes Lindcsinuseuni. Darmstadt. 78 Ironi \lnNew York, 1951 tisse:His In ami His Public, In \ red II. Barr Jr.. published by the Museum ol Mod-
63 and 65
Kandinsk) on pages 23, 56, 62, 63, 64, 65 and 67 appear b) arrangement with \ll\(.l'. b) French Reproduction In
Mired
h\
I'uhlie.
\
Photo Helene Adant. from
in lea re Pi// i
N.Y'.
164
Charleslhl.
1.
I
tab and Re\
Gilbert Casties.
168
u.il
165
Helene Adant.
Giuseppe Marchiori, pub-
Matisse, In
Ox
Company
.
New
Helene Adant. 171
Y ork.
166
Disl
b)
Win
— Ron d'Asaro.
Henri ("artier-Bresson from Mag-
From:VerveNo.35>36 TheLast Worksoj Matisse. 174, 175— ©Museum of Modern Art. N.Y. 176 through 180— From: Verve No. 35/36 The hist num.
II
173
orksoj Matisse.
181. 182. 18.3
Dmitri Kessel.
185
I
I
1
1
Acknowledgments For their help
don; Mrs. Walter A. Haas. San Francisco; Mrs.
the production of this liook the author arid editor-- partic-
in
New York. and
wish to thank Mr. and Mrs. Pierre Matisse,
nlarlv
Mr.
Lausanne; Mr. and Mrs. Xavier Lasbordes: Mrs. Ubert
Georges Duthuit, Paris. They also wish to thank Colette Audibert, Curator. Musee Matisse of Nice-Cimiez; Mr. and Mrs. Alfred H. Barr Jr., New York:
UCLA
man,
Sussex: Mrs. Sidne)
Bell, University of
Quentin
Musee du
Chambourc)
Paris; Alice Derain.
New York;
tisse Gallery,
:
Monroe
ilWrt Vloderue. Paris;
Boom, the ol Modern
Fedit,
\\
(Jill.
.
of Fine Arts. Boston: Ginette Signac, Paris; Staff of the Print
Chargee de Mission. Musee National
Mii-rum
New York; Lawrence Cowing.
Mu sen
Lon-
New >ork:
\rt.
Fine \n-.
ul
Kme
n ol
i
Museum
Library, and the Rights and Reproductions Department, Berlin-
paper works shown on pages
Gallery, London;
Hayward
Director, Arts Council.
Museum
rector,
Petit Palais,
Joan Diamant and Bruni Mayor. Pierre Ma-
John W. Dodds. Stanford; Denise
New York;
Lasker,
I).
Fulvio Nembrini, Arli Grafiche Vmilcare Pizzi, Milan; Perrv T. Rathbone, Di-
Brody, Exhibitions Chair-
F.
Art Council; Adeline Cacan, Conservateur,
John Hutchinson, London;
St.
Vntonina (serguina, The Hermitage Museum, Leningrad; Samuel Josefowitz,
Mrs.
anil
17:!.
176,
The Royal New York: Dallas
178-180 respectively:
ITT.
Museum ol Modern
Copenhagen;
I
laminck; the owners of the original cut
\
\rt.
and the Stedelijk Museum, Vmsterdam.
\rts
Ind ex Numerals
in italics indicate
arc given
a picture
A.ibby Aldrieh Rockefeller Memorial Window
'-
Abstract art. 56: Kandinsk)
canvas. 110-1
23% x 28%,
on
oil
Blue \ude: Dr. Claribel Cone,
comparison between
1 1;
IT
\
acquisition by,
Matisse
in relation to.
1.
Nice paintings
Vaileiuir Colarossi, Paris. Vaili'-niir Julian.
"ml (Heckel), 37%
II
Matisse
I
the. /". //
2d
-
hook (Gerl
photograph of sculpture
class,
Unci!
Dack,
American
to. T(>
Munch in
Matisse
Salon
d'
\iilomne.
Rouveyre, Matisse, 13%
H
1
i...
i
aquatint,
Homer
IpotheosisoJ 4pplication
Una
Ch.
(Signac),
\
lithograph,
6%
\
Chapel,
\lr.
Hi"..
ence
Matisse's
mural
sisters. 7
for,
\.
I
13-
I.
ol
Matisse.
i
:
Sembat's
collection, 69; Shchukin's collection,
Show
and exhibitions 1
ol
)
I
hi.
:
Vrmor)
104; nl Cezanne's
Matisse works,
exhibits ol
Matisse
s
Museum,
12');
Kahnweiler's
modern French
works
at
art.
69;
the Hermitage
104: Matisse
show
anil Matisse's
show
al
Paul
Guillaume Gallery, 121: Matisse show at
Druet's. 69; paper cutouts In
Mat
isse in Paris
Museum
Art, 1T8: Stieglitz's
garde
art.
of
Modern
shows of avant-
96, 9T. Seealso Salmi:
Salon d'Automne
186
\ 12'10", oil
.
II.
Cerman
<
I
.
I
T.
2
I
I
he.
mini-is c,
Cassirer Gallery, 93, 96-97
at
>
13, 12(
',2
\u.
il
-
published
rein h
|-
magazine,
pen-and-ink drawing in.
/
12,
ol
Cannon. Charles. 13, 5
laisiiiins
I
/
/
/
I
I
;.
\
.".
...
168
I
In-
i
lass (Ghirlandaio),
<
\irla. lo'T"
VSW, gouache
\
/
.
6
(
Foundation, armelina, 32
1
I
k
1.
Barnes
at
The (Seurat), 39
a, us.
Vcadem)
(
Colarossi
(
Collioure,
1
Pittsburgh, larriere,
12').
Eugene, 3
I
I
on canvas, 2i
ill.
I
19,
18:
I
I
s
I
terain's
drawing The
)cram and Mat
isse's
51, Td; Matisse's
in
War
I,
I
Matisse
1
7-
s
of Life, 57 Barnes mural, solution of in,
Id;
I
Berenson on
Matisse's use of, 97-98; changes of,
Harmon)
Red, 99; Delacroix on.
in
55; in Die Briicke painters, 5 1-55; effects of, in \
5
I
I
:
ence Chapel
In
French
lain ism ami. 5
Life,
of, 55,
's
Id8;
artists with,
l-.">2.
58: Kandinsk)
s)
dl); in
Jo) oj
mbolism of
ami revolutionary use
56; Matiss
Signac's
i
theories, 59; Matisse
93, 96-97
1
in
reminiscences of,
different colors
art of, ...
Pan-. 3
Matisse
6.5; in
experiments
:;
Cezanne. Paul, 29; attitude tow aol
.
ranee: 100;
sojourn at, during World
m
15
I
2314, oil
belongings collected
isse
Museum, 164; view from Hold Regina, 765
Matisse
problems at
s
preoccupation
»ith.2l.2T.33.5ll-5l.5T:Moreau on, 15; in
Munch 's
The Cry, 53; new
role assigned h\ Matisse to, 74, 98;
North Africa's influence on Matisse's
Chapel on. 156-157, 158
I
Polyphemus, Tin:
for,
(Color: 60;
Cave paintings, 98 Ceramic tile-: Matisse'- designs for, 17' 181, 182; Matisse's work for \ ence
German
120
Id.
trleans, Matisse's
(
E., principle- ol
,ui ying
si (
i
Jin
13
I
Gustave, 29
(
at the,
.ti
soft-ground etching,
M.
painting,
IT1
icpressionist school, (id .
97
.
Cassirer Gallery. Berlin. Matisse's show
I
Bex ilacqua, Matisse's model,
•/
reul.
room
Cartier-Bresson, Henri.
the. TT;
contract with Matisse, lo
Blinding
In
m
"il-
ami Matisse, 56-57
Caillebotte,
(
Bernheim-Jeune Gallery, Paris;
Blaue Beiter. Dei.
Duke
169-171; Mai
movement
art
(
the
).
on cut and pasted paper,
8
\
German
Carnegie International Exhibition, at
23
(
If!-
Cimiez, Nice: Hotel Regina, F64-166,
Card Players (Cezanne),
Germany, Matisse's show
pastel.
work m. 39,
t
TT
35
Id. IT.
Matisse'- Luxe,
P..
and
Fisherman,
Matisse, 97-98
Bleyl, Fritz,
(
<
in.
hire
Le(Rouault),25%x34%.
In-
Pointillism,
ith
165
2S'l! ". oil
TO; support and admiration lor
Biskra. Mgeria,
v\
Che\
lii-
i
I
-till life,
illustrations for verses by, 152. 753
movemenl
art
Mali— e'- -o|ou n-
.
55, tid:
Berenson, Bernard: Leo Stem a disciple
Berlin.
ml on
-.
Bussy, Simon, Matisse's friend,
IT.
I
\ 2')'
in
(Seurat), 39
1
i.
Charles,
War
Burlington Magazine. The, criticism ol
friendship with Matisse, 75
Brittam
1
00; lain ism
.
he.
I
Matisse
Bell,- tie,
1
I
Bruce. Patrick llcni
on
Pans.
in
\
.
It):
95;
it
Chapel
(
21
I
olupte&nd, 38; etching of,
I
b\
h -pace.
art collection,
Chardin, Jean-Baptiste Simeon,
12- 13
Cezanne's exhibition
at
Cassirer Gallery in Berlin. 93, 96-97:
Puasso's
.'ST.
Lure. Charles
Bell. Clive,
ol.
.i
Matisse's work b)
Riffian,
works. TT: Dudensing Gallery exhibit ol
T
Bei ber tribesmen, 103; in Matisse's
America, 76. 105
in
Art galleries
family, 69-
vogue for collecting
72. 80. 82:
Matisse
Men,
works
1
ai
<</
2: exhibition h\
m \ a-. 2 /. 99; comparison Dinnei hill. |o
Bril lain
Matisse's copy ol work by,
on canvas. lia nli
\utobiograph) ,
27,31-
among
Chasubles, Matisse's designs
See Briicke,
Matisse's
IT
I
10; influence
of, 20, 26,
Chapelle du Rosaire, Vence. See \ once
-
-
hahut,
12
commenl on
his.
ol
Id.
165
"Bridge,
Bathing Place lor Bathing Part) )ai
I.', I
1-95, 96;
eo Sinn.
ol
IT:
I
111.
I.'.
I
Isnieres (Seurat), Id'')"
75. HI:
I nl,
I!
Briicke,
Calmeet
')
I
-
130-131,
144-1 Id.
13,
/
...
I
Morosov's collection,
88-c!'».
version ol
lor.
art collet tion at
80.82: Harriet Levy, 76, 84; I
II.
129
French collectors' distrust
86,
final
mural
to Petit
18-1 19;
1
Bathers, 12; treatmenl ol
(ha, in,
\\ illiam,
and, 52; paintings during World
II
I
work
|
Shchukin's
(
Breton Sen ing (ail. 35'
canvas, 90, 122. exhibited
111: Caillebotte's Impressionist
It)
13,
I
32,
Matisse's possessions, 105, 164;
31,
illustrations. See Illustration ol
Kahnweiler
105, 131,
Museum,
Impressionism and, 9,
2d. 167
I
Bouguereau, xdolphe
13
Balhersb) aRiver,ST'
Art collectors: Barnes Foundation,
Cone
I
Matisseof
b)
gift
preoccupation w
Hue
32
correspondence w ith, 165 \nnor\ show ol 1913, Mil
painters, 29;
7-8,
Boucher, Francois, 126
Cone
\rt.
60;
on Matis
Cezanne's influence on.
Braque, Georges:
for, 123,
Barnes Foundation, Merion,
Barye,
// \
in, 75,
Barr. Vlfred, mi
7%, color
Wagon, Louis; comments on
ol
sketches ami hist version
(Ingres), 18
Cercle Chromatique de
<lu
(
to,
Cezanne's Three Bathers Palais
books ami periodicals .'
Mln-nC.
French
<9
Bonk
II
x
I
the Folies-Bergere (Manet), 10
Matiss.-'s
x
T
.
I
Penns) Kama:
between Matisse and, 58-59, 121 Ipollinaire,
Still lih'.
Gertrude Stein
Barnes,
relationship
11)1:
.
reliefs, 128, I2<>
Museum
Baltimore
liana
v
lithograph, 59; on opening "I 1913
\
I
and costume designs
Collection
Apolhnaire. Guillaume:
II. III.
I.
18
I
as precursor
53
of,
ilelii
28%, ml on cardboard, 66
\
Bohain-en-Vermandois, France,
18; drawing for, /_' Russede Monti-Carlo. Matisse's
stage
Matisse on. III. 143
art.
or anguish,
Ingst,
The,
costumes,
Ballet
Ballet
'I
Ugeria, Matisse's trip
acquisition h\ the. T
Bonn. ml. Pierre.
Cezanne ami Renoir
(
i
German
Expressionists' and French Fauvists'
105:
.
32. 19, 90; paintings by,
T2-T3
null- Stein),
\d. bronze
\ix-en-Provence,
-i
l>\
Barnes Foundation, 144, 145;
terain. influence on, 35;
I
Toklas, The,
78
interest in, T
in.
Dimensions
Ylatisse.
at
r
36
and Matisse's
art. Picasso's
In
Lit.
Blue Rider, The. See Blaue Beiter. Der
125
Blue
lutobiographyoj
.',
at
at.
Steins,
Vailruiir Matisse, Pan-. 76, 78-79;
nan
l>\
Blue \ude with Strait Hat (Kirchner),
Paul. 126
\ii.lra.
II
i
arr
furor caused by,
T.~>:
76: Quinn, acquisition
ml on canvas, 66
1
Vuctions, pni'i-s brought by Mat isse
cutouts, 119, 17:1-182 art. 10:
Pondinthe
ttthe
watercolor, 56; Matisse's painting and
\l
an works
nless otherwise identified, all listed
I
Painter and His Model and, 121-125
glass. Ii>7
\cademic
the subject mentioned.
[rtistandHis Model,
90" diameter, stained
the.
.
<>/
inches unless otherwise noted: height precedes width.
iii
ol
Matisse
2d; Card Players
treatment technique.
ol. 10.
121-122: I(>:
in Pointillist
realization nt pure
1
'
color 171
Matisse's paper cutouts.
ill
scientific use of,
Signac.
70-
lirnih
Bathing Place,
oman
Seurat and
li\
1.3:
1
Demoiselles d
Der Blaue Keiter. Cerman Expressionist -
Dinner Table, 19;
in Jo) oj Life,
Luxe, Calmeet
57;
Matisse's "planned" paintings, 27;
for, (
.l.ii -iliel
(
port
-
rail
ol.
Matisse, 75, 84: photograph of, 7/ (.one. Etta: acquisition of Matisse
works by, 75. 84: Matisse's HI: Matisse's stay with.
photograph
75.
laminck's portrait
85^,
x
on canvas,
oil
87 Cormon. Fernand, 30
ollioure,
<
6
of,
German
Briii ke.
N
x 51!
.
Gauguin. Paul. 9. 16;
Dominic
Couvent des Oiseaux,
homeol
Iirst
"Cowboy, The,"
Jazz,
Duccio
16%
colored stencil, Plate I
retois,
169, 174
in \
ence Chapel,
Cry, The
i,
i
ol, I
Picasso,
s
I
daughter Marguerite, 3
Cut on is. Matisse's work with colored
I
tut liini.
paper. 168-171, 172. 173-182, Barnes ol
technique
preliminan work on, The,
I
photograph
19;
I
window
Pocantico
lor
I<>.
Ei nil'
\,
:adem\
.
nl,
I.
cam as.
78
I
x
oil
33%,
Dance
II
on canvas, 133;
oil
.,
I
(center),
\ I2"i..
1
at
t
I
I
comment on Vence
Chapel. 108
Death of Sardanapalus (Delacroix). 18 Decorative Figureon an Ornamental 1 '
i
\
38'
_.
oil
on
cam a-.
109, 117. 128-129
Degas, Edgar, 13, 31
DeHeem, Jan
nun German
26
yes,
20, oil
x
Moreau'si /
the, 12-13.
at
lass of 1897.
ilization versus,
Davidz., 17.77-78
Dejeuner sur I'herbe (Manet), 38-39 Delacroix. Eugene: color and, 37, 55;
I
I
Islamic art
1.3
Sideshow
War
II.
53,
118
/
to,
:
absence
perspective
ol
goals. 5
I
Italy,
Matisse'- journe) to, 77
h
Flower,
in
i
9' I" x 9' I",
cut and pasted paper.
J
Palais, exhibition hall. Paris,
Line,
The"
Madame
(
"
I
\
:
7)2.
57, 58, 77:
e
II
/,"/./
bequest
-
ol
to.
00; Salon
exhibition and origin
ol
name, 52;
the, 12
al
Moreau
28, s
<
2''.
21%
x
15,
H„\_armon)
in
Red,
lassroom,
draw
nig.
50
1914,
pen and ink.
leckel. Erich, 5
69%
\
85
.
oil
on
book
ile
b) Matisse, 169,
Dam «
i
s/i/f/t
).
10'::
\ 2
panel
I
1
'.>:.
oil
on
,','_'
Ulysses, III
D.-ILoo
I
//
:
The, 67; nut
the
Pond
in
Kirchner, Ernst
led
I
I
Life,
walercolor. 56 13
udwig, 54, 55; Blue
Nude with Straw Hat. 66; woodcut
the
hi 1
it
Karfiol, Bernard.
ood, ltd
le
page
ol portfolio,
Kremlin. Moscow, 55; Matisse's
I
Ij-
I In-
and Music
in,
88,
89
(Seurat). See Chahut,
L
Maker
Matisse's
//
(\
visit,
crmeer). influence on
oman Reading,
187
for
~>~>
Hermitage Museum. Leningrad, /"/.
lli^h Kick,
e
lt>
canvas, 86, 98-99
Matisse's Dance
Boston, 75 Fisherman, The, 11% x
I
cam a-.
Kaahnweiler,
Henry, Charles. in
1
I
::i
Kandinsky, Wassily, 55-57; Motley
II
al
•<
1
/5
garden
Joyce, James. Matisse's illustration for
I
Matisse),
62,63
Fenwa) Court. Gardner's home
interest in,
Steins, 71. 75: at Barnes Foundation,
Jo) oj
Harris, Frank, American author, 125
Felix, 104; in Signac's painting.
s
e,
8
111: inspirat ion lor
techniques of three leading lames.
Feneon,
I
from, 88: Picasso and. 7
indou
and. 60, 61; reaction
I'lntelligeni e,
Jo) ol Life, 57-58; acquisition b) the
Guitarist, The\ Mine.
Gustat
de
Jazz, illustrated
Matisse).
Line")
ml on canvas,
Open
77
Devouringa Hare (Barye), 32
.aleaii.
(
117-1 18
\pollinaire on, 7)8;
gouache on
/
aeger, Hans. 52
lariliii
he Green
Grenoble Museum. Sembal Mai isse's works to, 69
acquired by, 16 I
at.
Island oj the Grande
llie
Gris, Juan, Matisse's friendship with,
oman Reading
in,
120, 121
18
I
on Die Briicke
Matisse's show II
on canvas, 9,
issy-les-Moulineaux, Mali--,'- house
on
Guillaume Gallery. Bans. Picasso'sand aure, Felix,
La Parade)
(
x 5914, oil
98; influenceon Matisse, 96, 101
Grande Revue, hi. Parisian magazine, Matisse's artii le lor. 59. 70
12; political 1,
poem
37, //
design lor decoration
s
glass.
v< Madame Matisse
World War
on
93-94, 101, 105; Matisse's pictures of,
Steuben
"(•n'i'ii
i
venepoel, Henri, 13
F
'."
mage.
\
Invitation to the
attitude toward. 77
s
oil
(Baudelaire)..38
Japanese prints, Gauguin
and.
Background, 5
I
mini. 15 5 \ 35.
I
92, 9.3
"ln\ itation au
Nazis ol
l>\
Inn, lion ol color in, 52, 60; Matisse
l<>
Dancers, 57-58
Daniel-Rops, Henri,
camas.
31
Fau\ ism, 3
102 Dancer, The. paper cutout.
Interior with a
(Seurat), 39'
I
Iflernoon on
I
Shchukin's palace, 88, 89, 100-101,
Interior with lo/illai. 17-18
Jatte
h
Expressionism, 52-5 7,60, 66-61
oil on canvas, 130-131, 132, 17 Dunn: 8'5%" \ 12'9' ". ml on canvas,
tpolheosis of Homer, on Matisse, 120
des Beaux- Vrts, Paris: Matisse's
Moreau
I,
Ingres. Jean VI).:
/
Matisse
i
ol
" \ c. 17'.
1'8!
7
./iit'imi
before World
:
I
on canvas, 133
(Barnes mural),
.1
."
Musee du
at
56
Matisse's work in decoration of, 30-
situation before
),
(
Green
iili
Grand
US, 20;
en
on
12' I", oil
X
132, 133, 144-147;
preliminary sketches top
33%,
i
Marguerite
Europe, Matisse on American
UW
u
ill
\ ollard's collection
des \ri- Decoratifs, Nice, 120
photograph.
fame D„
Matisse's
isse,
(,irl
illede Paris, Matisse's
la \
studies under
Matisse
ol
99
18
I
57. 10: show
to.
18: influence
Vndre, Bussy's portrait of,
(.id,-.
cam. is.
32
ol
l.i
Hungarian pupil
licla.
removal
6;
1
museums.
33-3
attendance of sculpture classes
lor stained-
for chasubles, 168
C/obel.
i-it- to,
\
,
Impressionist paintings, 31
nl
Grande Jatte, hi (Seurat). SceSundat Hicole de
Matisse
ol
lor designs
.
ite,
ol Matisse's
llama.
16;
95, 96,
59; res
19.
Improx isalion 10 Cannon (Kandinsk)
Die Briicke movement,
1:
and. 10;
art
world and. 52-53; Dinner
Luxembourg, 29;
1
xpressionism, 60,66
I
Coll. [wan,
nion Church
I
Hills.
Marguei
daughtei See Mat
1.
l,u
working on. 162; studies glass
ol
influence on Matisse, 15, 16,
art.
Pasiphae,
19;
Interior with Eggplants, 102
Matisse's paintings
Duthuit, Georges, husband
17
1
Ghirlandaio, Derain scop) from, 35
Dutch
/
harles d'l Means,
38; comparison between
in,
reaction
60;
to,
re\ oil against.
art collection,
Giotto, Matisse
74; Juan (Iris and.
debt
i-l-'
abstract painting, 56; artistic
ii
.1
hooks,
ol
I
against, 10-11; Seurat's Pointillism a
Matisse's lame. 60, 93; Matisse's
Dufy, Kaon I. 52; illustration
lor. tie
Matisse and. 20. 29.
of,
ol pictures by, 32. 50; in
53, 5
life,
I
Cubism: development
mural, use
,69
150
(Munch), 53; lithograph,
I3%x9
aims
artistic
Expressionists' and
Gericault, Theodore, Raft oj the
German)
Dudensing Gallery, New York, show
/'<"
lam
Buoninsegna, Matisse's
di
for
Table as manifesto for, 19, 25. 29;
"Medusa," 18
b)
covers
k
Munch 's
75
Gerard family, Matisse's grandparents,
Matisse's work. 120
Crucifix, c. 14" high, bronze sculpture
French
Shchukin's
I,
-man
heodore, Matisse's
1.3;
I
154-155; Minotaure, front
Impressionism: academic
influence on Matisse. 50; Matisse's
attitude toward. 77
25%,
\
I.
See Pasiphae
es
I
I
Cerman
purchase
15-1
I
53, 79;
Impressionism,
I:
I
Briicke art
.
show presented
the
Vcademie Matisse, 78
Barnes mural,
in
bai
color
Terrace, St.- Tropez and.
54,60,66 I
Odalisque with
1-U5
Striped DreSS, //
and German Expressionism,
I
Druet,
and
/_'.
/
Mallarme's poems.
lor
1:
1
in.
75: for Joyce's
I
153; lor Ronsard's lyrics, 152
Vcademie Matisse, 108:
at
I
17-1 18.
I
7",
published
109. 174,
l\ sses.
I
Gardner. Isabella Stewart. Matisse's
German) Die
Dresden,
Studio,
s
38
.Sec
on
oil
i,
mt
draw ./<;-;.
Flowers, 129
ralitzine, Elena, in
See St.
technique
I
150: Cahiersd' In. pen-and-ink
\eolmi>ressionisni.
(Signac),
k
and
visit.
hooks and periodicals.
Illustrations ol
16; role
10,
during Moscow
lor.
102-103
51; tradition
in,
techniques
-
to those of. 90; Matisse's
admiration
of,
painting odalisques, 106
G.
Matisse on,
si
Pointfllism,37,38,
19;
compared
151; lor Poemes
movement.
art
interest in illustrations and. 150;
The. 18
1.
Icon painters: Matisse
II:
1.3-1
I
Fry. Roger, friendship with Matisse,
\ ence Chapel. 107-168 Draw nut: earU training ol Matisse.
Courbet, Custave, 164; Painter
37. 52-53:
Fruits
Dominican Order. Matisse's work on
I
Barnes
lit;
art,
Impressionism, 10-1
ol
Sec I'oinlilhsin
Di\ i-ioni-iii
123
"Icarus." Irom Jazz. 109
of,
I
I:
I
Homer and the Shepherds, 18 Corsica. Matisse's honeymoon in, 30 Costume lor ballet dancers, 148; lor,
Academic
art:
from Delacroix to
6
Corot. Camille: influence on Matisse,
drawing
lhsen. Ilenrik. 52
19
I
Foundation collection
I
35.
1.
Briicke, Die
16;
117.
I,
La See Dinner Table, The
Dominic,
13
I
Conversation, 69?
3
h.
it
camas. 19,24-25,99
Museum,
Baltimore
in
\
ieu oj
I
Dinner Table. The. 39'
1.3:
I
laminck, 63;
Die
7/
of.
Cone Collection,
-
I
Desserte,
portrait
World War
104; in
of Salon exhibitions
w
12
Russia, 55, 95
in
Fisherman, 50; Matisse's friendship artistic relationship
JR.
llui sinaiis.
)2
/
(Corot). 18
Huneker, James Gibbon, 97
Matisse and traditional themes
Portrait oj Matisse, 62; PortraitoJ
i—e
\l.il
HI: patronage o I. and relation-- with.
of.
9.3.
b)
36, 39, 49-50; photograph of, 37;
37, 39, 12-43
i.nr. |)r.
Homer and the Shepherds
.
Ronsard,
ilr
Kahnweileroi works by, 69; Fauvism and, 52: in Matisse'- draw ins; The and
in
paper cutouts. 170; Seurat's talent
1
Ira ncc: Matisse's standing in, 80, 82.
French
64-65;
World Ward. 163; exhibits
to,
olupte, 39;
I
1
collaborationist activities during
15-] 17; in
I
to,
isit
\
;
Francesca, Piero delta, 77
Deraiii. Vndre, 34, 35-36,
Composition: approach by Matisse
,
66
school.
Colored paper cutouts. See Cutouts
in
Folk art. Ivignon, Les (Picasso),
s
Imours
Matisse's illustrations for,
in
Tahitian color.
with the Hat, 18; \ laminck
137; Barnes mural,
Lad)
in
Blue, lib
of. in
lorcn, e. Matisse
Florilege des
Delektorskaya, Lydia, 182:
and, 35
ari
I
120-127
li\,
use
12- 13;
111-
I
Sardanapalus, 18; odalisque
<i/
painting-
38. 39; in Seurat's
.'17.
Matisse, hi. II
I
Russian attitude toward, 55;
;
.
«
16
103
1
;
:
:
;
1
Index (continued)
Lady
29.
in Blue, 8b'/: x
admiration
on canvas,
oil
Landscape with Red Trees
26 x 32%,
on canvas,
oil
Large Red Interior, 57!
on
oil
i,
Lasker, Mr. and Mrs. Albert, paper
cutout model for stained-glass
24, 27. 33,
of.
Gone
Moscow
in
Czarist time for position as art capital,
Leonardo da Le Reve,
Hermitage
at
89, 104
Matisse on. 77
\ inci,
near Vence, Matisse's stay
villa
1
57.
.
patronage
sisters,
oj
of,
II
oman,
146, 119. 168-171. 172. 173-182;
glass.
Derain, friendship and artistic
Tahiti.
Derain's portrait of. 62; Druet
1;
at.
69;
Shu hukin, 86; for
16,
/
Beaux-Arts. 12-13, 14-15.20. 129;
167; in Music Lesson, 121
Steuben
rocker in
and costume for
illustrations lor
periodicals: /
71:
favorite subjects ol paintings of, 120;
I
lysses,
36; hrst
"Cowboy"
II:
I
1913 portrait
tor Jazz, 169,
portrait
Mallarme's poems.
17-
I
154-155; Minotaure, Oct,, her 19;
/
Pasiphae, 151; for Poemes de Charles
Levy. Harriet Lane: collection
on, 50: Impressionism and.
d'Orleans, 153; for Ronsard's lyrics,
29.
>.
Matisse of. 84
93-91. 101, 105, 120, 121: Italy,
Lithography, use
journey
book
of, for
57:
illustrations, 150
participation in group show
97: wedding trip
96,
to.
II
Luncheon of the Boating Part) (Renoir),
Luxe,
dime el
<
art collector.
37 x
olupte,
I
I
II
on
16, oil
canvas, 38-39, 46-47
Luxembourg. Museedu, Impressionist
show
at the,
WLadame
29
("The Green Line' and tempera on canvas,
Matisse
16 x 12%,
oil
),
62
57% x 3814,
Matisse (1913),
oil
on canvas, 87 Mali' Model,
Mill. u me,
39%
\
28%,
oil
on canvas, 26
poems
of,
17-
I
of
,
95-96
150; influence
Manguin. Henri,
I
Iiic
and work
II
I
111. 123-
III.
Damrl.
132-133,
10-131,
I
I
Shchukin's
[29;Dinnei Table, The, [9,24-25,99;
124; personalilv and character trait-.
hulls and Flowers, 129; Girl u
8,9,13-14,33,71-72, 105,
Green Eyes, 84; Guitarist, The,28
11. 146,
30,31,
120
73, 76, 78, 100, 105, I.
9, 10, \6
'
health during
III.
Id:
poor
Quai
Harmony
in
Red, 86,
(
»8-<i (
Faun: 23;
in
photograph
Palais, 3
St. -Michel
18.
I
I
Tropez as guesl
..I
reaction to son's decision to
become
Madame
separation from
Matisse,
S ich ii kin as collector and patron
18:
I
86, 88-89, 94, 96, 99-101; space,
Matisse, Henri: academic art and.
Academie Matisse,
art
school
I
New York,
Luxe, Calmeet
I
10;
in Paris.
96, 97;
19. 137;
still life
12
1
I
* >
I
Matisse (1913), 87; Male Model,26;
7-
1
:
life
and work during. II, life
art of,
58-59; art education, III
32, 34, 36; article
Notes"
in
art. ideas
l.<i
Matisse
32-33: Moroccans,
series.
I.
Id
5,
Grande Revue, 59. 79;
to
I- It).):
188
li
i
-
I
1
1
possessions, 137,
Berenson's support and
and back covers,
October 193d
/
issue.
/'/
painting of, in Paris and
Mediterranean
light,
on importance
of,
Moffett. Ross.
I
17-121:
orld
\\
Id:
1
I
13
1
Monet, Claude, 17,29; Terrueeo/ I,
lre.se.
I
19;
It
\
ui
169, 174,
I
Monfreid, Daniel de, 50
Dam a.
The, 121;
of, 11,8-171. 172.
173-182;
"Toboggan, The," Matisse
ood, 72;
II
/
75;
Zulma,
— drawings: ballet costume,
Mudein
Sude Seated on a Hlue
llll
15;
<
>/ien
II
II
I2l;0pen
70; Painter and His Model. The, 110,
87.
125: Painter's Family, The. 78. 1(12.
\uile.
103; Pewter Jug, The,85;
134-135,
I
73
Red Studio,
The.
(1939), 6; Still Life with Black Knife, 16; Still Life with Fruit Dish, 24;
.' I
1;
cop) from nature and from cast, 11;
1
II
19;
II
annul on a
oman Reading,
I
ieu »/ \otre
hah
Id; "
I
1-15. 18. 19;
5' 1
I
V
\
9'2". oil
on
visits to,
and
122
Morosov. Ivan. Russian collector. 101
Moscow
:
art collecting bv rich
Muscovites, 94-95; Matisse's
\ isil
show
to. as
in,
96;
Shchukin's
guest. 88. 102-103: Russian color
Self-Portrau (1917). 124; Self Portrait
'
12.
22
influence on his paintings. 103-ldl.
Matisse's
82; Red Still Life with
St.-Tropez, 75-76;
nicorns, The,
participation in art
19; Portrait oj
Magnolia, 136-137;
teachings of. 29; Matisse's
Morocco, Matisse's
union.
union. The (1905), 61; Oranges,68,
121
/
in
canvas, 90-91, 122. 120
Tabac Royal, 137, 138-139; Terrace, 1
1897. photograph. 75; death of, 30;
Moroccans, The,
Red
(19001.2/. Self Portrait (1906), 81;
and the Siren, The. 178-180; Swimming Pool, The, 170; technique
I
Moreau. Cu stave. 12-13. 23: class of
teacher and friend.
\i)2;Kil/iun. 111. 145; Self-PortraU
Flower, 177: Parakeet
I
in, 7
gaps
Michael Stein, 73,82; Portrait of Sarah
76;
Suuite-
Ill
Musu (sketch) (1907), 83,99-100,
Stein, 72,
Christmas \ight,
in
//"-///: Matisse
Shchukin's palace, 89, 100, 101, 102;
Musu Lesson,
s
illustration lor front
lithograph anil photograph of, 12:
Piano Lesson, The, 121. 129; Pink
— cutouts: Barnes mural, studies
I
The,
Painter's
on. 59. 79. 98.
attachment 16
"A
1
War I,
and work during. 151.
"Cowboy. The,"
96-97,
rug design lor Alexander
The,90-91, 122. 129; Music, for
//»-«:,, II, ourei. 118. 119,
Vence Chapel, 150, 75868 voyage to America and
art of, 16-17, 85-36. 50-5
on
and, 77, 78, 99,
13;
lor.
1.
olupte,
Madame Matisse("The Line") (1905), 62; Madame
Striped Drew,
al
success and recognition, 16-
76, 78-79; analysis and criticism of
104, 12(1-121, 126, 169; Apollinaire
I
x 5,
Minotaure. French periodical. Matisse
LargeRed
Interior,
ollioure, 50;
Trousers, 112-113; Odalisque with
exhibition
163-167
I
Top
iolin,92;
I
(
105;
101; Steins, relationship
to,
Gallery in
War
a painter, 12
Interior
;
Landscapeat
male nudes
monograph on. 69;
South Sea-. 141-144; World
31
7.
1
Montmartre, Picasso's hie
161,
l'i
131
Green
to,
Matisse, Emile, Matisse's father,
I
attitude toward, 168; Russia, trip to,
17,93,96, 104, 105, 129; Tahiti, trip
Massine, Leonide:
in,
Montherlant. Ilenrv ,1c 15
1
Marx. Roger, 16-17.29
Foundation
38-39. 16-47;
the,
Grand
Merion. Pennsylvania, Barnes
studio, 118. 119. 121: religion,
with,69-73,76,82,93;Stieglitz
at party.
120; work on decoration of
)
of Life, 57-58, 71, 73, lll:./-n oj Life (stud) ),82; Lad) in Blue, 116;
Cushion, 127; Odalisque in
ith,
I'll
98
perspective and.
art.
Models: contrast between Matisse's
.Am
years, 163-164,
la-l
16
Moreau's Classroom, Id:
Hat, 17-18; Interior with a
relationship with, 73-75. 168; 3*1.
ith
u ith Eggplants, 102: Interior u ith
183, Picasso,
I
mime
(,
a
VudeCalled
Museum. Niec-Cimuv.
Smith Carpets, 766
Cuillaume Gallerv show with Picasso,
voyage
Matisse's friendship «
Matisse Matisse
Mimosa. 3
preoccupation with. 103; Spain.
;
I
Matis-e Vcademy, Paris. See Academic
Ornamental Background, 109, 128-
I
in
Piano
in
:
105;
I.
Id:',:
58; Decorative I mine on an
Marquet, Albert: experiments w 13-14, 117. 118. 127-128;
12
2').
1
129; odalisques as subjects of
Marc, Fran/. Yellou Cow, The,67
color, 51
New York.
paintings, 106, 107-115; Paul
165-166, 167; photographs of,
for
!,\
Michelangelo, Matisse's view on, 77
of,
ith
Dancell,
ll-l 16;
I
17; Ztonce, for
dealer in
Medieval
bnversation, 87:
<
arre-i
palace, 88, 100-101, 102; Dancers, 57-
I
32
armelina, 27;
French Resistance and
character and success of, 125-127.
128: Sembat's
51
alking (Rodin),
in.
129, 157. Ill: Nice paintings,
Sigiiac. 87. 38: sculpture. 32, 127,
Folies-
on Matisse, 38-39, 126 13,
\ude, 71, 75, 76, 105; Blue Still Life,
visits to, 111-112. 143;
work
105; in Music Lesson, 121; work
II.
/.cssii//.
122. 129; Blue
New York,
88. 102- 1113: at St.
Bergere, 10; illustration of books.
'HI.
:
I
Idd
lather's paintings. 121
77: Breton Serving Girl, 17. 19. 24, 99;
of. 100, llll. 125:
18.
1
Mamonto\ Savva, Russian patron Manet, Edouard: Bar at the
and. 59;
re.
Hun.
Hath,;, In a
the Hal. 18. 5
ith
Matisse. Marguerite, Matisse's daughter.
art
Irtistand His
paintings:
u
Resistance and imprisonment,
li
Matisse, Pierre, Matisse's son. 3
in
Model, The, 110 111, 12 1-125:
12; lav,
165-170, 172; prices paid for works
Stephane. Matisse's
150. 154-155
arts.
Rouvev
Pointillism and.
illustrations for
Man
\pollinaire,
157, 162,
Madame
Rouveyre, Matisse, 59; Odalisque
Matisse
of, 141;
Matisse, 87;
I,v
Germans, 166
Ipoltinaire,
Striped Pantaloons, 107
15,76,98, I
lithographs:
poor health
:
of.
"TheGreen Line" (1905). 62;
aman
//
for
marriage. 30; music and. 98. 123- 121:
Nice.
10
Lund. Tel/en. Danish
77; Kandinsky and. 56-
to,
(or Jazz, 173
"Toboggan"
,_'.
/
Matisse
years in Nice, 164-167, 169
Ill-Ill. 121-122. 121-125.
I
ilia at.
v
studies, 8-9; lithograph ol
of Moreau's art classes
visits
.oii\ ri'.
in,
30
to.
last
170. 182: light, interest in,
London, England: Matisse's
I
21
49, 59: Ksv -les-Moulineaux,
he. 121: in
I
separation from husband. 148; in
Frem
Exhibition, 129: Gauguin'- influem e
"I
with her husband,
Italy
7,: in Music Lesson,
photograph. 31
Leriche. Rene. French surgeon, 164
Matisse painting-.. 76; portrait by
marriage ami devotion to husband, 30. 31; in Guitarist, The, 28,29,36;
books and
1936, front and back cover lor.
Carnegie International
Paravre).
Matisse's wife: Apollinaire on. 58;
Painter's Family, 87, 102. 103; in
"Icarus" for Jazz, 169; Joyce's
18.
I
Madame (Amehe
Matisse.
journey to
18
1
The, 32, 33; Serpentine, La, 100
Matisse. Jean, Matisse's son. 31, 105,
it
Matisse
Fauvismand.52,57,58,60,77;
1.
13: set
1
Sealed \ude. 127; Serf,
\u,le. 11)8:
etchings: Charles Baudelaire.
Matisse
33-34,36, 16,76,96,98, 101;
financial problems, 30, 3
18: \ ictorian
I
/ /_'.
Vence Chapel, 160; Large Seated
in
Irani endpaper; Self- Portrait, /
The, bronze
rebels. 128. 129; Crucifix in bronze
I;
IM: Edgar Poe, 755; Reclining II aman ith Dog, 125
Ecole des
at
10;
I
(one. 8
one, HI: Sarah Stein,
(
Massine's ballet. s,
evolution toward personal style, 20.
prize ol
166-167
Etta
\lis~.
6; Sergei
6
laribel
(
sketch for portrait. 72; Seated
75; cutouts, work with colored paper.
one-man show
7,8
Museum, 88,
51 1-5
98; composition, approach to.
1.
\ude, sketches for.
of,
fS,51,69, 71
Matisse),
— sculpture: Back.
Matisse
Torso,
I'ar/raa oj Harriet Levy, 84; Portrait
relationship with, 34, 35-36, 49-50,
by. 17/
Le Cateau. France, Matisse"s birthplace.
at.
70; Pink
39,
at,
\ude
Granges, sketch
/_'_':
Portrait oj Dr.
27. 137;
sculpture. 70S
Leningrad: competition with
trms Folded,
31-32. 77: ('ollioure, sojourns
treatment
Large Seated Vude, 3VA high, bronze
95; Matisse's paintings
show. 93,
96-97; Cezanne's influence on, 26-27.
60, 7
window commissioned
Studio, back endpaper;
19,51,64,76, 117-118; color,
,
38!
\
i
6.
141
10,
/
laminck),
(V
Hail Madame
Fisherman, The, 50; Vudeinthe
97-98: Bernheim-
birth. 7; Cassirer Gallerv
"Lagoon," from Jazz, 169 Landscape at < ollioure, 50
canvas.
for,
Jeune Gallerv, contract with. 104:
116, 117
Dame,
in
Kremlin, 55;
Shchukin's mansion and
art
collection, 86. 88-89.
96, 99-100,
llll.
Mode)
<>l.
104 Life,
The (Kandinsky).
57'/io x
the
63.
tempera on canvas. 55. 6/
Munch, Edvard, 52-53; artistic aims ol. 70; comment on work by Die Briicke artists.
54-55; lithograph of his
painting The Cry, 53; Matisse on, 59
Munich, Germany: Expressionist
Stool, 121
aman mih
sense manifested
in. (,o. (,(,;
Kandinsky's hie
in,
artists
55, 56;
.
Matisse's
to, lol
isil
\
Matisse ;ind friends
Musee I '; i
r
-
'
17' at
Odalisques:
Museum
Modern
ol
exhibition
knowledge
of, 98, 12:5-121
n as.
liw
Quinn, 105
100; acquisition In
20%
II
indow,
I
on canvas,
x 3514, oil
191
Matisse
paintings,
s
Duke
Derain's attitude toward
Matisse's
of,
Norwa) 52-53 (hermanlel lor fireplace, 9'3"
colors and hues used In Matisse, 60;
on canvas,
Poemes de
Morcau on nature,
of nature, 59;
on painting around
15; theories
I-
I
19(10
and, 30; 20th Centur) art's contempt fur.
Irtist
from German museums,
i
*l
irk
lit)
<
Union Show
:
96, 07: M.ii isse Dinleii-iiiu visits to,
show
iallei
(
New \ork Evening Matisse
Ve«
1
.
Man-,.. 105,
lo.
I
photograph
ol
«
and work
life I
in,
I
i::j.
ism, 66;
ami
">.">
paper cutouts
impressions on his
7
a
waj
rule in
1:
German
arh-i
.
Dame,
18;
I
ieu
\otre
<>/
19 '- oil
on
(Marquet),
211
\
53-5
(Duchamp),
\nnor\ show. 101
Nude figure: Him<
lezanne's treatment
in
Three
Matisse
in relation to
Ion. 101;sensualitj
rendering
s
of,
1
20; in
In Die Br'ucke painters, 5
\inlrin theStiidio, ITS
\
I
22%, pen and
II
null.
72
monof)
Iran Folded,
ne.
\\
<>' V\t
\ 5!
122
it,
Red
home
Montherlant
orld \\ ar
II.
26
pern
student
in,
art
in,
as center ol
12-
8-9;
bohemian
\
I'
I.
Henr)
di
linoleum-cut,
.
V
s .m
8
at the,
12
am
(
ol
I
French architect, 167
ummings,
I
27%
x 15
I
Haas,
lezanne's
I
22
\
isco
s
oil
..
Museum
In
Im-r Bathers to, 32,
canvas, 85
25%,
oil
on
(
hall--, ale figure
in,
-'I
8. O.
ill.
I
I
'rope/. France, Matisse's sojourn at,
Salon: characteristics required
l.
I
1
1.
I
I
19
I
ol 7:
Matisse's difficulties w ith the, 30; Matisse's Dinnei Table exhibited in
15
Bernlieun-Jeiine's
Shchukin
the,
at
1897. 19. 29; role life,
m
French
artistic
.") I
Salon d'Automne (1905): exhibition b)
to
Matisse. 100; offered In liarue- lo
Fauvist painters, 52, 60; Matisse
Matisse for Cezanne's Three Bathers,
//
I
w
and
lhapel,
Saint-Quentin, France, Matisse's youth
paintings exhibited
oman
with the lint,
-
the, 19, 51,
at
69
17
iili
Salon
Rome, importance of, 18 Profileoj Head, 23% x 18 ,i liar, oal ile
isse, 70.
78
SelJ Portrait,
93;
Matisse
in
photographs,
ile-
76,
70
Uuai St.-Michel studio, Quinn, John, acquisition
57,58; 38.
Pans. 118.
ol
Matisse
al
1907), Cezanne's at the,
opening
of, In
luilepemlanl-
exhibited
1
77
al the,
l.u\i.
:
ol
I
Blue \mlr
76; Jo) oj LifeaX the,
Calmeet
I
olupleaX the,
39 ile la
\rt-:
work-. 105
I
Salon d'Automne (1913), eulogy
Salon
sketch, //
Purrmann, Han-: friendship w Mai
Wtomne
d'
paintings exhibited
Matisse, 75
119. 121 x
ence
as Signac's guest, 37, 38, 16 13,
I
;
\
56-757
[
spent
82
(Seurat
commissioned
mural for
Petersburg. See Leningrad
i
ol
Si.
laminch (Derain), lo's\
es
15'6" high, painted
i
ile-.
Saint-Gaudens, Matisse's sojourn
.
Paris. Matisse's
18-1 10 i
102-
163-164
Matisse's painting of, I
i
Matisse drawing
„','.
/
Salon
Museum,
Moscow, 88.
Illl
kDt. Dominic, glazed
98. 101, 122 Petit Palais
87.88-89.
/
ram
I
on canvas, 6
raits,
i
Prix
Paul Guillaume Gallery, Pan-. Picasso's
and Matisse's show
\i-it to
oil
I
Prichard, Matthew Stewart, friendship Cretois, b)
ing
I
1-95; color
ite-.
55; icon painters, 96, 102-
in,
103; Matisse
il
contract with Matisse, 101: lor panels
frontispiece illustration, 150, 151
gift ol
Trousers,
one,
<
ing,
Prices on art market
world, 70
Pasiphae (from Les
I
iii
man
Shi liukin'- art acquisitions in, 95;
Pewtet Jug, The, 36'
O. ialisque
I'm
Perspective, Matisse's rebellion against,
\ude Seated on a Blue Cushion, 127 \ude Torso,
lei
Mu-ein
Sarah and Michael Stem
i.
Poseuses,
Matisse as law student
Perret, Vuguste,
ink drawing, bach endpapers
\i
Portrait o)
Madame
15;
Steins'
am a
i
oil
occupation, during
arl
draw
oal
Waller
The, ll'%" x
(
traditions, 96; art collei
In rich
foi
han
on
gouache on cut and pasted
Paris: as art center, 9;
arti-tn
i
Collection, Gifl ol Mr. and Mrs
Matisse,
sculpture, 127; in paper cutouts, 173;
/
hii
,
Parayre. \nielie-\oelie- Alexandrine.
In Matisse, 32-33; in Matisse's
2o
Portrait oj Sarah Stein, 2!!
and the Siren,
':".
8
rancisco Musi
I
Portrait "I Miss Etta
Sideshou
I
Russia: absence ol Western European
am as,
103; Matisse work- collected in, 86-
Collection, Gifl "I Nal han
Parade, La (Seurat). See Invitation to the
25'
Matisse's relationship
P.,
with. 17. 25
Sarah and \ln hael Stein
\ri.
-
(
163-164; Matisse as
Shchukin panels,
1
b) Matisse;See Mimosa
John
Russell,
8
mi canvas, "mo
(
Paper cutouts. See lutouts
comments mi Matisse's nudes, 97; male nude series 120; Huneker's
\utlr in a
lo.
color, 32
\ude photogi iph
Bathers, 32; In Francois Boucher,
works
II.
10,
and
Matisse's working techniques
I
Se<
\ude, furor caused
quest ions regarding,
10
v.
Portrait oj \ln hurl Stein. I
paper, 178-180
anvas, 23
i
\iulr Descending a Staircase
In. 70:
I
illustrated in Pink
Parakeet
II')
VWe Called Fauve
i
in Matisse's
ml mi canvas, 62
ic life,
in Pointillism, 37, 39,
Enamel.
Portrait oj Matisse (Derain), 18'Ax 13%,
134-135
107-115
Norwaj Munch s art ami. 52-53 Notre Dame, ealheilral, Pan-: favorite I
on
Massine,
costume designs
lithograph. 39
16,
olors
t
in
18
1
sense
Harriet l.n
mi papei
ol painting lor
Matisse's brushstrokes
art, oft. 103- lol.
121-122; \lah--r'- odalisques, 106,
subject ol Matisse,
and
3,
Rousseau, Henri. 95
Rug design,
17%, oil
1
class ol 1807.
Voir, ballet staged b)
Rouveyre, Vndre, \
23'/-i
ing.
x
23; lithograph ol Moreau, 12;
for,
10'/4x8Vi,
of Custave Morcau (Rouault),
I'nrirnii nl
problems and, 98; Picasso's Cubism,
63;
love ol Matisse lor. ami
a
ii
29
15,
Matisse's stage and
I
Ingles, Tones I,
23; as Moreau's favorite pupil.
Rougeet
lithograph, 12
llai
Paintingtechniques:Fauvist painters, 62-
North \0
fi
18-
l.r.
19.
/.>
16; .'58
Background Rhythm with Beats
nl n
Portrait
Matisse's view
:
I
draw
oal
(Signai
Matisse, 169- 171; perspecti\ e
II:
164-167, 169-
in,
Nietzsche, Friedrich,
m
119, 17
influeni e on, 36, 59, 70. 08:
and
12
171
al
xpress
I
n ling-. 120. 12
i
han
12
/
152
.
Chantier,
;
photograph of Moreau-
/ / /
I
Matisse's house, 124,
and death
old age
i6.
on canvas
In
-
rii
Mat i— e. relationship with, 13;
on
10.
on.
k
Portrait oj Felix Feneon, against
18
I,
Signac'sl
14;
K
Rouault, Georges, 5 1
13
I
oluple, 38-39, 16- 17:
I
Portrait oj Dr. Claribel Cone,
20th century, 9, 30; Derain
on, 35, 36;
iili
oil
15
|
ions for
illusl rat
129,
visit to,
of Derain (Vlaminck),
Portrait
11.
I
Rodin, Vuguste, 32
III-
hades d'Orleans, Matisse's
inspiration from,
on
oil
i
1
123-129, 137,
I.
I
76%,
d lourbel
In
I
Fau\ ism, 5 -o2: Matisse's
Nice, France: Matisse's I
x
59, 70. 102. 168 Painter's Studio,
in earl)
,
111
I
II, in, in.
Pollaiuolo, \ntonio, Matisse's
and His Model and, 121-125
\pol!inaire's interest in, 58; changes
20; Malisse'-
I
13
I
10; comparison between
Painting: abstraction,
alentine
at \
inten iews w
ml, Vimes,
Gallery,
Mail, criticism ol
work.
s
v
ll-l 12.
1
1913,
ol
at St ieglitz
<
Seurat, 37,
oil
i,
i
Neo-Impressionism. See Pointillism
101; Malis-e -Imw
on canvas,
Matisse's position toward, 39,
38'
\
anvas, 87, 102, 103; Matisse on, 73 "Painter's Notes, \." article In Matisse,
18
I
/
Painter's Family, The, 56'/<
Matisse paintings
ol
57%
lh\ Model,
on canvas,
I
I
Nazism, removal
New
JTaeh. Waller, mi Matisse, 77 I'niiiiri mill
colled ion,
s
Ronsard, Pierre de, Matisse's
Calmed
Luxe,
s art
31
Pointillism, 10. 1445, 16; influence
nature, 36; Matisse on interpretat
Shchukin
Parly, 10; in
illustrations lor. 153
17
/
and
staj
Rocking Chair, pen-und-ink drawing, 36'/4, oil
.
164-166, 169-171; view from
at,
collection, 95; in \ ollard
Paris, 167;
lo
I
39
x
17
/
and, 9, 20; Luncheon oj the Boating
69; Matisse,
.
works by, owned b\
Pittsburgh, Matisse's X ()'. oil
16-
/
Renoir, Pierre Vuguste: Impressionism
73-75, 105; murals
iili.
NESCO building in
15,
I
.
as,
Matisse's room. 165
and
lor.
Kahnweiler
3;
Pissarro, Camille, 29
and
.in
.
Pink \ude. 26 x
Oslo,
Naturalism: contrast between natural
.
Matisse, lol
illustration for verses by, l>2. 153
9't
In
rail
Matisse, 124;
121
18, 119,
I
nn
death
165;
II,
6%,
x
29M
Life with Magnolia,
oil
Paul Guillaume Galler) -how with
lo
II.
on canvas, 68,
3314, oil
\
Orleans, Charles, The, magazine, criticism ol
port
relationship w
no.70
iNL iatton.
War
13;during World
I
fori (Colli, .ore.
In
1
Regina Hotel, Cimiez: Matisse's
18V5,
x
9
Carnegie International I'n/e awarded to,
companion,
with Dog,
Red Studio, The, 102 Redon,Odilon,95
Gertrude Stein's admiration
union. The (1905),
Oranges, 31
The, 121
n,
\udeina s
Red Still
13
I
oman
II
etching, 125
75; acquisition ol
I.
Chapel. 107
i'
Matisse's cutout technique, 108:
on canvas, 61
Open
Reclining
winner
portrait of, a
exhibition of works In II
oil
small painting dated 1907,83,99-
Madame,
Matisse's Oranges, 70; admiration for
73
Open
Music (sketch ), 29 x 24, oil on canvas,
on Vein
of Carnegie International Prize,
18
Olivier, Fernande, Picasso
canvas,
it Ii
I
Piano Lesson, The, 121. 129
middle-
ol
I
I
13
I
Picasso, Pablo, 7
106;
ood, 72
II
12'9' ". oil dii
\
101, 102
L
representation
rem
I
18, oil
13-1
I
Philpot, Glyn,
art tradition,
Of, George, acquisition ol
and
for,
panel for Shchukin's palace, 89, 100,
Musu
\
i
'
Matisse's subjects, 106, 107-115, 127
Music, Matisse's love Music, 8'5%"
Foundation,
1
paintings,
s
Raftoflhe" Medusa" (Gericault), 18 MansiRayssiguier, Brother, work "
Philadelphia, Matisse's visit to Barnes
I
Picasso,
Delacroix
in
isse's
elass
L78
the,
at
Mai
Vrt, Paris,
Matisse's paper cutouts
ol
1 1
/-/ /•>
/ /
120-127: French
20
the,
at
12-
/
lithograph. Plate 64, 107
i.
on canvas,
Musee du Luxembourg, Impressionist
as.
Odalisque with Striped Dress, I5x
the, 132, 147
show
on rain
oil
it,
)dalisque in Striped Pantaloons, 2
de
la \ ille
version "I Barnes mural
first
.
33!
ol
76
\n Moderne de
d'
i
photograph
;
in,
1
Societe Nationale des Beaux-
founding
of, 10; Matisse's
work
permanent membership nomination lor Matisse.
exhibited
at
the, 16;
17
San Francisco
Museum
ol
189
\n. Harriet
1
1
1
Index (continued)
Matisse's Dance,
88
Switzerland, Matisse's sojourn
Societe Nationale des Beaux-Arts,
Symbolism: attributed by Kandinsky
South Seas, Matisse's
shown
in
models
21% x
Self-Portmil (1906),
6,
Wix
I
letter to Stieglitz,
,
(Purrmann). 3
Self-Porlrail
1
I
1
28
\
oil
i.
on canvas. 76
1
:
photograph
relationship
\\
Terra*
Tiles. Sec
patronage
sculpture. IIX) I:
Balking
Place, isnieres, 12-43; influence
relationship w
ith.
III.]
of Matisse
Ifternoon on the
at
work on
portrait of, 7
Shchukin. Sergei: collection of modern
Stein, Sarah
miles
Matisse's friendship w
\i
at
Matisse
(
!liureli ol s
Academie Matisse.
78: support lor
mansion
Academic Matisse,
7<i. 81)
of,
94; Matisse's portrait of,
86; patronage of Matisse, 96, 99-101
Sterrer, Karl.
1,
104
Steuben
Shostakovitch, Dmitri, music for ballet
Rouge
el
Voir.
I
/
18
Siena, Italy. Matisse
77
l*>.
IT.
Ipplicationdu
II;
Collioure in paintings h\
Mat
isse's
comments
.
on, 59;
Still
at
Feneon, 15; prediction on colonsi by,
New York, Matisse
and Matisse's treatment
Study of Old
:.
19'
i
Sunday
\
Skira. Albert,
commission
The
text
oil
Book
differs
and
Irom
thin
,
I.
19!
Paris
Bodoni
oj
understanding
Paul. Bussy's portrait of, 13
German
lam
rendering model
of,
isis'
debt
to,
/ /.
letters.
in
light. 7/0-
in
II I;
1.~>;
etching. 725;
female figure by
ol
Matisse, 108, 773
ol part\
World War
I.
World War
II,
117-124 Matisse's
life
during,
151. 163-107
Worringer.
Expressionists' and
\
oil
auxcelles, Toms, origin ol
60; Matisse
W
historian. 5
ilhelm.
German
art
1
name I ellou
stalls.
\
150, 107-108:
10'%",
oil
m
Ho,lom
One
Hook, a the
oj
weighted old-style characters
The Bodoni charactei
I
I
I)
l\ U S
is
\
in
vertical
».
Girl I'on tier mil Herself (Seurat).
JLiuljna, 7'o
i"
\
T
I
V. gouache on
and-pasted paper. 172. 773
typeface
earliest
:
1
30
photographs of Matisse
windows. 108
(1740-1813).
\ 7
work on,
working on. 156-157; stained-glass
57
Cow, The (Man). 55%
on canvas, 67
Young
100; designs lor chasubles for
priest- of, 768; Matisse's
was pholocomposed
more evenh
parts
in
Mediterranean
in
///. 12 1-125; Matisse's world
\
i
and
inhabited almost excliisneh by,
Dongen, Kees, photograph home,, I. 120
54;
10.
I
18%,
VM\
190
omen: contrast
70; Die Briii ke painters inspired by.
/ /
on canvas, 37, 39,
Giambaltisla
thick
(Kandinsk)
acquisition by
69, 7 \\
an Gogh, Vincent, 9; artistic aims
ifternoon on the Island oj the
lor ilus book
designer,
13; Matisse's
17: Stieglitz
Vence Chapel, Trance. 158-161; choir
Grande Jatte (Seurat), 6'9"
to Matisse lor
atercoloi
:
and. 17
Man Sealed, 24%
pencil draw nig.
charcoal on paper. 72
I
49, 51
Leo and Gertrude Stein,
72;
Fauvism, 52
relations with Matisse, 38, 39, 16;
2!
\
ol
with Fruit Dish, 15! ix 18'A,
Strindberg, \ugust, 52
I
at
Life with Black Knife, 16
50; reaction to Joy oj Life, 58;
Sketch /or Portrait oj Sarah Stein,
\ .in
the, 96,
on canvas, 24
12
II
French
Still Life
I
I
Matisse),
ml on canvas,
.!.
representation ol,
137
Pointillism and, 40; Portrait oj Fell
Seurat and, 37.
milled
Va, 'alery,
subject. 77: Matisse and. 78. 00.
I'):
12.
18.
23'
x
odalisques. 106, 11)7-1
18
('.('valine'-
Cercle Chromalique de Mr. Ch. Henry.
III
first
in the,
25, watercolor and ink. 56
97 hie painting: comparison between
Still
I
32
glass. Matisse's design lor vase,
1
show
II
Gallerv show ol Matisse works. 06. 07 /
ith,
Thomas, friendship for
oman on a High Stool, 12 oman Reading, 16 oman with the Hdl.t Mme
II
tur.
13
Stieglitz Gallery, visit to,
Signac, Paul: acquisition of Luxe, Calme elVolupte,
16,
I
window
it
visits to, at
Emile, Matisse's friendship w
.
Matisse, 75. 93
Matisse painting to arrive
in
sculpture class
VV er)
W hittemore.
i«,
I'm anlico Hills.
Matisse's remarks on,
ol
I5'ix35
stained-glass
Matisse's portrait of, 82; Matisse's
photograph
cisgerhcr. \lhert. photograph with
_'_'
sketch for portrait of. 72;
50;
illustration
collecting Matisse works, 70:
7'):
72.'}
16, 17
Red acquired by, 98-99; as host to Matisse in Moscow. H12I03; Matisse room in Moscow in
s
767
72. 76, 82;
ilb.
Costume Council Fund,
Weill. Bcrthe. 71
nited Slates: California vogue for
I
\rt.
on
County Museum
Weber, Max. 78
///
\Tiii--e'
classroom
ademie Matisse,
Dance and Music panels to Matisse. 88,89, 100-I01;gift by Matisse of to,
ol
x 8'j, pencil
Matisse of, 76
n n >n
I
acquisition ol \ude in n
:
W ood for George Of, 72;
86, 94-95, 96; commission lor
The Fisherman drawing
Poe, Le" Irom
distemper painting.
I;
"Le Chant du
paper, Los Angeles
Lnicorns, The (Moreau),
support for Academie Matisse, 78
1
for
151
lor.
Matisse's portrait of. 82; photograph
Harmon)
alker, Horatio, 143
amor Costume
//
Rossignol." 16%
lysses (Joyce),
Self-Porlrail ol 1906. 80; Matisse's
II.
friendship with, 70, 72, 73, 82;
art,
Wn
Irom Poesies de Stephane Mallarme,
u
s
95
Fdouard.95. 167
...
\\
Pointillism devised by, 37, 39, 10;
15: Suiidii\
II
Toulouse-Lautrec, Henri, Moreau on, 14
Poseuses, Les, at Barnes Foundation,
Island oj the Grande Julie.
13 x
Poesies de Stephane Mallarme, 155
73
63
rubel, Vlikad. Russian artist.
\
V in Hard.
from Jazz,
The,'"'
36; Portrait
Cauguin's portrait from, 50
Die Brut ke (Kirchner),
111. woodcut, 55
\
Red
u iih
of,
31. 32; Matisse's purchase of
18-149
I
Derain's
Vollard. Ambroise, Parisian art dealer.
oil
tiles
"Tombeau d'Edgar
70;
Stein. Michael: acquisition ol Matisse
Matisse, 49. 50, 57; Invitation to the
Sideshow (La Parade),9,37,
i2,
leramic
(
19%,
Matisse, 69-72, 76; Picasso,
on
ol, 103;
photograph
oj Derain, \
"I ombt-au de Charles Baudelaire. Le"
82. 95;
ith,
Vence Chapel. 158-159
Kahnweiler exhibits of
color, 51;
Toklas. Alice B., 76; photograph, 71
76,
and relationship with,
of,
177
colored stencil. Plate 20. 775
and
10 x 21', painted
c.
tiles.
portrait of, 63; experiments with
Tropez, 75-76
-
"Toboggan,
Matisse's Music in house ol. 99:
high, bronze,
Seurat, Georges Pierre, 10-1
15%
B.
69 -72.
1.
Berenson. relationship w >
v
e,
on canvas, 26,
ol
[lice
Child,
Semitic outbursts
lor.
on
V laminck. Maurice, 3 1-35. 64-65; anti-
isit
\
x 37. oil
Trees, 65;
of, 7/
Stein, Leo: art collector. 7
on paper, 86
drawn during
Dame, 57%
/</
and glazed
Matisse's use of paper cutout
lie-.
/
143 x 29!<8, oil
til
\ulre
and
irgin
113
Title page foi
Matisse,
ith,
93; photograph
>'
I
Shchukin, 1914 x 12, charcoal
Serpentine, La, 22'
ieie of
Terrace of Sainte- tdresse (Monet), Id ol
Toklas, The, 72-73: patronage of,
The (or TheSlave), 37% high,
I.
I
works by, 00; Landscape
07
\ulobiography oj
Matisse in
117
Sergei
24
Teriade, E., 165
ence
tiles. V
73; art collector. 82: depiction of
bronze, sculpture, 32,
12.
ieu oj Collioure (Derain),
canvas,
16
166
I
I
technique for designs
Hills
Stein, Gertrude: admiration lor Picasso,
;
Sembat, Marcel. Matisse's friend, 69,
Serf,
Tapesl
Matisse. 100; remarks on Matisse in
crayon
lO'/i,
in special issue of, 1
on eamas.
3114, oil
\
Three Bathers (Cezanne), 19%
Steichen. Edward, 9
Self-Portrait (1917), 124
Royal, 2>
to, //-'.
Matisse. 156-157
Self-Porlrail (1030).
Vence Chapel. 759
in
ictorian rocker
\
ence
78; in \
/
Chapel. 159, 168; in photograph
!8'A,oilon
canvas, 80, 81
drawing.
77.
/
painted and glazed
_'/
20,
for,
Stations of the Cross, c.10 x 17'6",
on
oil
murals
oman Rending.
II
art periodical, Matisse's
Victorian rocker, sketch.
137. 138-139
Union Church of Pocantico
endpaper
25^6 x 17%,
work
to
Tahiti: Matisse's trip to. 142-1 13;
1 C > 1
Chapel. 158, 160-161. 168. Seealso
oman, pen and ink drawing,
cam, is.
T„hIku
and
Stained-glass windows: Matisse's cutout
Self-Porlrail (1900),
!ross
(
French
on canvas,
Spain. Matisse's trip to.
Matisse, 78
Irani
12-
I
by Matisse. 103
Academic
Sealed \ude, sculpture, 127 II
trip to Tahiti.
10; treatment of. by icon painters
183; Matisse's study of. 32. 127;
Seated
on Matisse's erve,
I
I
143
back, 128; Matisse modeling clay,
at
3
in,
Space: Cezanne's preoccupation with.
lour rehels of female
photograph of class
Vermeer. Jan. influence of Lace- Maker
various colors. 55; in Stations of the
founding of salon by, 10
Sculpture: different phases of Matisse's arl
Stockholm, 96
in
the. paper cutout. 170
Smith, Matthew. 78
for portfolio of lithographs
55
by,
Swimming Pool,
148. 150, 154-155
in
Schmidt-Rotluff, Karl, 54; Kirchner's
woodcut
Sweden, Matisse show
Mallarme's poems, 147-
illustrating
Levy's Matisse collection in the. 76
Sardana, Catalan dance depicted
mimed
modern
the
greater
with
a
for
Italian
its
t\/iel<iees.
Bodoni
contrast
between
thin,
straight
serif.
cut-
^&A\&