Matisse: Cut Outs: Tate Modern: London: August 2014
Matisse: Cut Outs: Tate Modern: London: August 2014
Henri Matisse’s (1869-1954) cut outs are pictorial icons of the Twentieth-Century avant-garde but this exhibition explains their evolution in terms of the context of Matisse’s ageing and declining health. In a sense Matisse’s rejection of painting was an aesthetic choice but since he was primarily a realist painter cut outs offered Matisse a new direction. Obviously they allowed him to re-assemble his images, to test out the composition, allowing him to re-establish his images and their contexts. However, cut outs were also a practical response to the artist’s loss of mobility which had been caused by a colostomy, (a medical cut out). Matisse found novel ways of overcoming declining health and immobility. Yet Matisse, the great rival of Picasso and along with Picasso and Marcel Duchamp a key innovator in modern art, was creatively vital and energetic to the very end of his life.
Matisse’s initial attempts at cut outs (Matisse described his work as cutting into colour, indeed the cut outs are partly pictorial and partly sculptural.) were made in 1937, scenery and costumes for a ballet choreographed by Leonide Massine to Dimitri Shostakovitch’s Symphony #1. Choreographing serious symphonic works was a controversial innovation devised by Massine but it did produce Matisse’s first cut outs, made for the ballet. This led on to Matisse’s work Verve (1937), cover designs for a prestigious poetry journal and then to Jazz (1943-46) which began as a series of cut outs to illustrate a book of poems. Ultimately Matisse’s notes made to accompany the original cut out models (‘maquettes’) replaced the original text. The title was not devised by Matisse either but by his publisher Teriade, to depict the improvisational nature of the work. The work depicts circus figures and characters. There are many highlights, such as The Horse, the Rider and the Clown, many moments when colour itself becomes the subject as Matisse seems to create new colour or colour itself from startlingly unusual juxtapositions. Matisse seems to be aiming at naturalness and spontaneity rather than laboured technical effects which gives the works a child-like spontaneity and originality. Jazz is the highpoint of the exhibition for it seems that when Matisse’s work became larger and more grandiose the colour effects dimmed and became less intense.
Matisse was encouraged to continue with his cut out techniques through such works as Oceania (1946) which was itself a reflection of time spent in Tahiti in 1930. During the war Matisse lived near Nice, the lower storey of his house was requisitioned by the German occupation. Matisse’s daughter Marguerite was tortured in a Rennes prison, for she was active in the Resistance, but escaped when her train bound to Ravensbruck was bombed. Matisse and his family were involved in political events, even though Matisse himself was deeply unpolitical, but they survived the war. Then Matisse became involved in a new project connected to the Chapel of the Rosary in Vence near Nice. The nuns at the chapel had nursed Matisse through a serious illness so he agreed to complete several decorative artworks for the chapel but in the end decorated the entire chapel instead. Much of this work will never be seen since it is now in the possession of the Vatican but we do see The Blue Window (1947), the second maquette for the Apse, The Virgin and Child (circa 1950) and even designs for the priest’s clothes such as The Red Chasuble (1950-2). Matisse’s work in Vence was followed by works like Zulma (1950) and The Thousand and One Nights (based on the famous poem) which astounded contemporaries with its innovation even though it was exhibited among the work of artists half Matisse’s age. In 1952 Matisse completed The Blue Nudes I – IV. These are works which are sculptural indeed they seem like muscular, monumental works that are simultaneously subtle yet also merely pieces of blue paper. The artist is able to infuse them with his personality but also breathes life into his work and combines it with incredible depths of blueness that zing off the canvas. Along with Matisse’s work The Snail they seem to be his last important works.
The Snail offers us a child’s view of this slimy, fragile (and edible) creature yet the work is also a triumph of abstraction and minimalism, a kaleidoscope of colours that underscores the joy and simplicity of creation itself. Indeed creation seems to be the subject of The Snail not just the creation of an artwork but creation itself as a deeply metaphysical indeed possibly religious concept or a spiritual state or feeling that goes far beyond scissors, glue and pieces of paper.
Paul Murphy, Tate Modern, August 2014
Henri Matisse’s (1869-1954) cut outs are pictorial icons of the Twentieth-Century avant-garde but this exhibition explains their evolution in terms of the context of Matisse’s ageing and declining health. In a sense Matisse’s rejection of painting was an aesthetic choice but since he was primarily a realist painter cut outs offered Matisse a new direction. Obviously they allowed him to re-assemble his images, to test out the composition, allowing him to re-establish his images and their contexts. However, cut outs were also a practical response to the artist’s loss of mobility which had been caused by a colostomy, (a medical cut out). Matisse found novel ways of overcoming declining health and immobility. Yet Matisse, the great rival of Picasso and along with Picasso and Marcel Duchamp a key innovator in modern art, was creatively vital and energetic to the very end of his life.
Matisse’s initial attempts at cut outs (Matisse described his work as cutting into colour, indeed the cut outs are partly pictorial and partly sculptural.) were made in 1937, scenery and costumes for a ballet choreographed by Leonide Massine to Dimitri Shostakovitch’s Symphony #1. Choreographing serious symphonic works was a controversial innovation devised by Massine but it did produce Matisse’s first cut outs, made for the ballet. This led on to Matisse’s work Verve (1937), cover designs for a prestigious poetry journal and then to Jazz (1943-46) which began as a series of cut outs to illustrate a book of poems. Ultimately Matisse’s notes made to accompany the original cut out models (‘maquettes’) replaced the original text. The title was not devised by Matisse either but by his publisher Teriade, to depict the improvisational nature of the work. The work depicts circus figures and characters. There are many highlights, such as The Horse, the Rider and the Clown, many moments when colour itself becomes the subject as Matisse seems to create new colour or colour itself from startlingly unusual juxtapositions. Matisse seems to be aiming at naturalness and spontaneity rather than laboured technical effects which gives the works a child-like spontaneity and originality. Jazz is the highpoint of the exhibition for it seems that when Matisse’s work became larger and more grandiose the colour effects dimmed and became less intense.
Matisse was encouraged to continue with his cut out techniques through such works as Oceania (1946) which was itself a reflection of time spent in Tahiti in 1930. During the war Matisse lived near Nice, the lower storey of his house was requisitioned by the German occupation. Matisse’s daughter Marguerite was tortured in a Rennes prison, for she was active in the Resistance, but escaped when her train bound to Ravensbruck was bombed. Matisse and his family were involved in political events, even though Matisse himself was deeply unpolitical, but they survived the war. Then Matisse became involved in a new project connected to the Chapel of the Rosary in Vence near Nice. The nuns at the chapel had nursed Matisse through a serious illness so he agreed to complete several decorative artworks for the chapel but in the end decorated the entire chapel instead. Much of this work will never be seen since it is now in the possession of the Vatican but we do see The Blue Window (1947), the second maquette for the Apse, The Virgin and Child (circa 1950) and even designs for the priest’s clothes such as The Red Chasuble (1950-2). Matisse’s work in Vence was followed by works like Zulma (1950) and The Thousand and One Nights (based on the famous poem) which astounded contemporaries with its innovation even though it was exhibited among the work of artists half Matisse’s age. In 1952 Matisse completed The Blue Nudes I – IV. These are works which are sculptural indeed they seem like muscular, monumental works that are simultaneously subtle yet also merely pieces of blue paper. The artist is able to infuse them with his personality but also breathes life into his work and combines it with incredible depths of blueness that zing off the canvas. Along with Matisse’s work The Snail they seem to be his last important works.
The Snail offers us a child’s view of this slimy, fragile (and edible) creature yet the work is also a triumph of abstraction and minimalism, a kaleidoscope of colours that underscores the joy and simplicity of creation itself. Indeed creation seems to be the subject of The Snail not just the creation of an artwork but creation itself as a deeply metaphysical indeed possibly religious concept or a spiritual state or feeling that goes far beyond scissors, glue and pieces of paper.
Paul Murphy, Tate Modern, August 2014
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