The Highly Opinionated Newsletter XVVolume 5
Musee de Matisse, Cimiers If one were not already familiar with Matisse, one might not fall in love with him in this museum. None of the definitive paintings are here and what is exhibited is too discursive and too diffuse. The Matisse one meets first is rather undistinguished. The still-lifes are prosaic. But soon, in early landscapes, signs of the later artist appear. In Belle Ile 1896 and Maisons a Fenouillei 1898, the infatuation with pattern and color as the tools of experimentation and exploration are visible. Nature Morte 1899 takes still-life, too, into the realm of color and pattern. In the 1946 Fauteuil Rocaille, the arms of a chair swirl exuberantly into green. In the 1936 gouache Tahiti, saturated and flattened color prefigure the later foray into the pure shape of the cutouts. In the 1946 tapestry Polynesia La Mer, the sea becomes a microcosm, as plants and fish mutate into birds and stars. And we see the steps by which the 1935-36 frieze for the Barnes Foundation, La Danse, is created. The artist clarifies and simplifies color and imagery to convey powerfully yet succinctly the idea of the female torso in movement. In the great Blue Nude, a 1952 decoupe, the female figure is a series of fugal components in a cosmic composition. It is the studies for the chapel at Vence that are most touching. Here the artist continues the quest for distillation, for a balance between inclusion and exclusion. We witness the process of experimentation and elimination as he turns to symmetry and geometry and exploits the simplicity and power of the circle and the triangle. The priest's chasuble acts as a restricted landscape that expands to encompass all. Upon a green field suggesting nature, a black ground with yellow motifs alludes to the divine. Intersecting all is a cross. It appears like a scimitar, showing the immense power that faith wields. Within designs for the pavement, heaven and earth, stars and flowers interweave. Matisse's stated desire is to create a "celestial prism." And he does.
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