The Unknown Matisse: A Life of Henri Matisse: The Early Years, 1869-1908

A good, comprehensive biography with the only nagging doubts caused by the traces of Spurling's suppressed hero-worship. By the end of this, the first of two volumes, you get the feeling Picasso is being set up a little too neatly as the arch-nemesis of the next book; she seems to have difficulty in overcoming what Gertude Stein coined the Matisseite/Picassoite divide, or even accepting those who found themselves on the other side.

Although I like his work (his later work, it turns out), and I've been to Nice and have seen where he lived and been to the Matisse Museum devoted to his work in Cimiez, it turns out I knew nothing about him. This book has fixed that, at least in part. Because it is only part of the story, taking you up to 1908, when he was 39 and just becoming successful. Since he lived to be 85, there is a second volume that needs to be read.

Reads like a thriller, with artists struggling, falling by the wayside, getting up again, dying. Exhausting to read but fascinating.

I think that Matisse’s paintings are wonderful because he enjoyed doing them and he put ideas and feelings into them. But I wonder about our experiences when we go an art gallery. Art goers come from different spheres of life. If I look at something and don't understand the deeper ideas within I can choose to shut up or I can comment at the level I can reach - nothing wrong with that. When I saw an exhibition of Matisse Cirque pictures I was bemused because I could see many of the forms but I could not understand Matisse's choice of subjects for each picture. I was a little disappointed that there was nothing there that appealed to me like his blue nudes. But as I listened and read about the pictures that I was looking at I discovered show more some interesting ideas and I felt that there was a journey through the sequenced pictures. Months later I saw an exhibition of Fauvist paintings which were hung in black walled rooms with strong lighting illuminating the work. The effect was stunning. There are no works from Matisse (that I can think of) that are The Great Masterpiece that everyone knows and can name (people can reply to this review as they wish) but in the history of art Matisse contributed to and experienced the creation of a number of interesting genres.

Before he became an artist Matisse spent a little more than a year in Paris. In those months the Eiffel Tower was built up from nothing to the great structure it is today. He then went sick and ended up in bed from some months with not much to do except learn to paint. His final pieces were also created from wheel chair or bed.

I am sure that colour was of prime importance to Matisse when he was a Fauvist. I am not so sure that colour was so important to him when he was cutting out shapes, it seems to be more the desire to suggest objects using flat shapes, and even there he was not trying to develop 3D images but simply create objects flatly.

The artist should not be concerned about measures, whether time, or acceptance. Instead, when working on his/her art, the artist should, with all of his/her capacity and will, enter the realm where these measurements don't apply; where all there is is the uniqueness, creativity, and vision of each artist. Of course, this is very difficult; the ego feeds on measurements of power, influence, wealth, success and so on. Once ridden of these concerns, the artist is ready to produce and express uniqueness, which is the contribution that adds to art, that enriches both: art and the artist. And if afterwards, when the critics/experts, gallery owners and the like, decide that the art produced doesn't "measure up," then there is reason for the artist to savour a degree of satisfaction, in that he/she expressed what undoubtedly is his/hers alone. This doesn't mean that the work will necessarily go unnoticed. On the contrary; it might be recognized as its very own kind, just like the great works that have been created, certainly, by the same process.

The book? Too much biography and not much on Matisses's art itself. show less