If Picasso is a monster of art Matisse is the master. Like anyone, Matisse made mistakes. He worked on life size models of his wall mural for the Barnes Museum for years before discovering he had the wrong dimensions. But unlike most people he learned from his mistakes and he got better and better up to the end. “Jazz,” the greatest illustrated book of all time, is aptly titled even though most of the pages depict circus scenes. It is the visual equivalent of jazz.
The flatly painted, cut paper that Matisse worked with during the last decade of his life is impossibly vibrant and three dimensional when cut by the master. The scale, the visible cuts and layering, the tactileness of the cut-outs needs to be seen in person. You most go now to MoMa.
MoMa’s “Matisse:The Cut-Outs” recreated the swimming pool from the walls of Matisse’s dining room. The “Blue Nudes,” which masterfully depict human form in 2D, are are my pick for best room in the show but I made that choice before we experienced the last two rooms where each wall had a knockout large scale piece. The Parakeet and the Mermaid, The Sheaf, Acanthuses and the Snail are all mind blowing. And then we walked bcak through the show in reverse chronological order and determined the Jazz book from the beginning of the show was our favorite. It is all killer. No filler.
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in awe of photo