37
The Chapel of the Rosary, 1951
127
THE TEXT [Preface to the Tokyo Exhibition] my
Pensee Francaise in Paris 2 important exhibition in would be my last show Japan Mr. Hazama had so clearly explained the interest it would have for the art After I had decided that
—
exhibition at the
Maison de
la
of this kind, I nevertheless agreed to this
students of his country.
Given the place that Japanese artists have accorded me until now, I thought it my duty and so I collected for this exhibition paintings and drawings which show my activity retrospectively. I hope that the students who see this show will perceive that the principal interest of my works comes from attentive and respectful observation of Nature as well as from the quality of feeling which Nature has inspired in me, rather than from a certain virtuosity which almost always comes from honest and constant work. I cannot stress enough the absolute necessity for an artist to have perfect sincerity in his work, which alone can give him the great courage he needs in order to accept it in all modesty and humility. Without this sincerity, for which I am making a great case, the artist can only drift from one influence to another, forgetting to find the ground from which he must take his own to accept his proposition
individual characteristics.
Let the young artist not forget that the attraction of this ground is directed to his heart and rarely fits in with the problems of existence. He must nevertheless manage to reconcile the two without impairing his scope.
37
The Chapel of the Rosary, 1951' Upon
completion of the Chapel of the Rosary at Vence, Matisse wrote an introduction to the book of the Chapel. His comments, which are quite general, barely touch on the Chapel
picture
itself. Instead he stresses the importance of the Chapel as a summing up of his career, as a unique contribution to posterity and as a major synthesis of the traditions of which he is a part. He calls particular attention to his reaction against the Beaux-Arts teaching and to his study of the expressive qualities of form and colour: in short to the respect for 'the purity of the means' which he saw as perhaps his most important contribution to the plastic tradition, and which he felt to be so powerfully realized in the Chapel.