Henri Matisse… The Great Master…

Henri Matisse…

A huge orange card…

Plonked…

Through our…

Post recently…

Upon opening… we immediately recognised the beautiful images… of the paintings inside…

The card… was an invitation to the… “Matisse. Paires et Séries” exhibition… at the Centre Pompidou…

By the… erudite… “Ministre de la Culture” himself… Frédéric Mitterrand… as well as Alain Seban… “Président du Centre Pompidou“…

As we travelled up the many… vertiginous escalators of the Centre Pompidou… all the way to the sixth floor… where we reached the skyline of Paris… the view of “tout Paris“… was breathtaking… the Tour Eiffel… “Sacre Coeur” in Montmartre and Invalides… Napoleon‘s golden dome…

After swooning at the incredible beauty of the view… we were escorted into the actual “Galerie 2” exhibition hall… where we met prominent people from the Press… including one from Le Figaro, the French “quotidien”… another from the New York Times… and from Vogue magazine…

After a short introduction… by a knowledgeable young lady… about the background to this particular exhibition of Matisse and his works… we began our journey… moving from one long room into the next… one painting to the other, studying and scanning each… intimately…

The exhibition was a remarkable and outstanding collection of his works and masterpieces… selected from the most prominent public and private collections… internationally.

It covered Matisse’s artistic career from 1869-1954… and focused on… doubles, repetitions, variations, oppositions, juxtapositions… which were the foundation of his work…

Matisse was a “tireless inventor of new creative processes“… also he was profoundly involved and impressed by form.

“Representation, realism, colour, surface area and volume, interior and exterior“… Matisse‘s questions and thoughts on form… greatly influenced modern art.

Sixty paintings were hanging on the walls of the lovely airy “Galerie 2“… which included his first attempts in 1904 of painting the “pointillist” method… to the 1950’s “papiers découpés“.

Also lavishly displayed… were the four large “papiers gouachés découpés“… as well as a collection of thirty drawings assembled for the first time since they were created… by the Great Master.

We greatly admired… “Intérieur, bocal de poissons rouges”, 1914 and the “Poissons rouges et palette“, 1914-1915…

Also… “Intérieur rouge de Venise“, 1946… and “Intérieur jaune et bleu“, 1946…

The… “Nu au fauteuil et feuillage“, 1936… and “Femme nue drapée“, 1936… represented the Great Master‘s change in style in which he… simplified shapes and eliminated details…

In “A Painter’s Notes“… Matisse described his work…

“Beneath the succession of moments that constitutes the superficial existence of beings and things, and which clothes them in changing appearances, soon to vanish, it is possible to seek a truer, more essential character.  This is what the artist focuses on to give a more lasting interpretation of reality.”

However… our favourite… was the radiant painting his masterpiece…  “Le Rêve“, 1940…

Delving dreamlike into its details… colours and shapes… the lightness of the atmosphere conveyed in “Le Rêve“… one is transported to the… “Côte d‘Azur, le Sud en été”…

What with the bright light of the early sun… to the dreamy… lazy afternoons in Nice… Saint Tropez… the Var… or Provence… (the area in which Matisse lived in the latter part of his life)… one is in a state of euphoria dreaming of the beauty of life… while being enormously impressed by the maturity of thought… typified by Matisse… the Great Master himself…

From Paris, this incredibly beautiful exhibition… will travel to Copenhagen and then to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

Henri Matisse…

One of the most influential artists of the twentieth century… left a vital and powerful legacy of his creative genius…

Which should make…

The Great Man…

“très… fière…

très… content“…

a.