s,
'hchukin
fell
so in love with Matisse's art that in 1909
he commissioned two giant canvases, Music and Dance (below).
Each was about 12
feet
long and was intended to
startled the artist
setting
sun made
— as it
it
seem
hung
in his studio the rays of the
to quiver.
He had gone all
out to
intensify his color, saying later that he had aimed at "the
decorate a landing along the stairway in the importer's
bluest of blues for the sky, the greenest of greens for the
Moscow home. As the theme for Dance, Matisse returned to his monumental Joy of Life, extracting a circle of gay
earth,
dancers from the background. For that scene and for this
(page 83). There, two of the listeners are so stirred by the
new work
the artist drew on his memories of the Catalan
dance-in-the-round called the sardana, which he had seen in
southern France. But while the sardana
mathematical
in its precision,
joyful exuberance.
Dance
is
is
intricate
Matisse invested
so vital that
it
it
with
repeatedly
and
and a vibrant vermilion
for the bodies."
For Music, Matisse also went back to an earlier work
music that they have begun dancing. Here, however, he emphasized their rapt concentration, their absorption
in
private thoughts. Stillness has replaced action, creating a
sharp counterpoint to the frenzy of Dance. In these works, Matisse's drawing
is
deliberately simple,