.
Notes
In the notes, references to certain basic works have been
made throughout
in the following
shortened forms:
= Alfred H. Barr, Jr., Matisse: His Art and His Public (New York, 1951). = Gaston Diehl, Henri Matisse (Paris, 1954). Escholier, 1937 = Raymond Escholier, Henri Matisse (Paris, 1937). Escholier, 1956 = Raymond Escholier, Matisse, ce vivant (Paris, 1956). Schneider = Pierre Schneider, Henri Matisse exposition du centenaire (Paris, 1970). Barr Diehl
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE 1 This brief account of Matisse's life is meant to help the reader put the documents and discussions that follow into context. For a detailed account of Matisse's life and work the reader is referred to the basic works above. 2 See Barr, pp. 44-5, for a translation of Roger
Marx's essay. 3
4 5
Barr, p. 92. See Barr, p. 116, n. 2. Later Matisse was to recall,
it seemed to me like a huge Asian village' (Text 39, below.) See also Alison Hilton, 'Matisse in Moscow*, Art Journal, xxrx, 2, Winter 1969/70, pp. 166-73. 6 Clara T. MacChesney, 'A Talk with Matisse, Leader of Post-Impressionists', New York Times
Magazine, 9 March 191 3. 7 Escholier, 1956, p. 126. 8
9 'I
went to Moscow
.
Barr, p. 256. Barr, p. 256.
The
letter is
dated
1
September 1940.
.
INTRODUCTION Matisse told Georges Charbonnier (Text 41, be1 low) : 'I myself have done sculpture as the complement of my studies. . . . For a change of medium. But I sculpted as a painter. . Sculpture does not say what painting says.' While Matisse wrote on painting, drawing, and book illustration, he wrote virtually nothing about his sculpture. 2 Matisse was conscious of this continuity: 'There is no separation between my old pictures and my cutouts . .' he told Maria Luz in 195 1 (Text 40, below). Quoted by Apollinaire (Text 1, below). 3 4 'Notes of a Painter' (Text 2, below). Barr, p. 562. 5 6 'Notes of a Painter' preceded by a considerable amount of time published statements by Braque and Picasso. Although Braque's earliest interview (1908) was published in 1910 (Gelett Burgess, 'The Wild Men of Paris', Architectural Record, May 19 10, pp. 400-14), his writings were not published until later ('Pensees et reflections sur la peinture', Nord-Sud, .
.
.
December
1917, pp. 3-5). Picasso's
first
published
theoretical statement ('Picasso Speaks', 77ie Arts,
May
1923, pp. 315-26) came even later. Further, while Braque's writings on art are aphoristic, and sometimes obscure, and Picasso's bombastic, Matisse usually uses the expository form, as in 'Notes of a Painter'.
He also wrote statements on each of his major media, with the exception of sculpture. 7 At the turn of the century Matisse was considerably older than his fellow students, and while working at Carriere's atelier evidently took a somewhat pedagogical attitude toward his colleagues. Jean Puy, for example, recalls Matisse's discussion of the structure of Cezanne at this time (Michel Puy, Ueffort des peintres modemes, Paris, 1933, p. 70). 8 In this way Matisse's writings differ quite sharply from the intense systematization and
specificity
of
Kandinsky's Concerning the Spiritual in Art, or the writings of Paul Klee. Matisse was inclined to speak in general terms he avoided complicated nomenclature or practical demonstration of ideas, and his writings are always more philosophic than technical; or, when ;