VISUAL MEDITATION - "Matisse’s Radical Reinvention"
- Paul G. Chandler
- May 23
- 6 min read
By Paul G. Chandler - May 23 2025:
The old adage that “a picture is worth a thousand words" isn’t always true. There is the possibility that something profoundly important is not seen. The words of the 17th century English poet William Blake come to mind: “The eye altering, alters all.” In other words, a change in perception or point of view, transforms what we see or experience. I recall how a paper cut-out artwork titled Le Bateau (The Boat) created by the renowned French artist Henri Matisse during the last year of his life, was once accidentally hung upside down in the Museum of Modern Art in New York. It hung that way for a month and a half. Some 116,000 viewers strolled past Le Bateau, admiring it without comment, seemingly unaware it was upside-down, before a viewer familiar with the work noticed and it was eventually rehung correctly.
I was captivated by the above black and white photograph of a seated Henri Matisse drawing an exotic pigeon held in his hand, the first time I saw it. It was on a poster in a friend’s Moorish villa in Casablanca, Morocco. It is an endearing glimpse of one of my favorite artists, and I fell in love with it instantly. It reminded me of how Matisse liked to pray with a pencil: “At the moment I go every morning to say my prayers, pencil in hand; . . . Is this not a way of praying?”
I learned that the photograph was taken in 1944 by the great Magnum photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson. It clearly shows Matisse’s love for pigeons. As someone who bred fancy pigeons as a teenager, I find this aspect of Matisse intriguing. The image also reflects his love for North Africa, one of my favorite places, as a Moroccan Berber kilim rug hangs on the back wall. Matisse had visited Morocco in 1912 and 1913 and was inspired by the luminous North African light and the richness of its culture. The vibrant and expressive colors of his most evocative paintings reflect this influence from North Africa.
However, I did not know that in this photograph Matisse was physically debilitated, and basically chair and bed-bound for the rest of this life. Early in 1941, at the age of 71, Matisse found himself lying in a hospital room in Nice, in southern France, where he fled from Paris for his safety during WWII. Doctors had discovered a cancerous tumor in his colon that they deemed inoperable, and many encouraged him to prepare for death. However, with the assistance of his daughter, Matisse undertook a hazardous 12-hour journey to Lyon, which was occupied by the Germans, where doctors performed a new surgical procedure and removed 14 inches of his intestine. The operation took four days and was punishing, almost leaving him for dead.
He suffered terribly for months, remaining entirely indoors. The first time he was able to visit a nearby park, local nuns named him Le Ressuscité, “he who rose from the dead.” Five months after his surgery he wrote to his son: “I was resigned to the idea that I would never get off the operating table alive. So now I feel as if I had come back from the dead. It changes everything. Time present and time future are an unexpected bonus.” Reflecting on that period of hardship, Matisse recalled, “In those little moments of calm, between two pangs, I imagined the inside of a tomb, a little space completely enclosed, with no doors. And I told myself, ‘No, I prefer still being around even if it does mean suffering.’” Matisse would go on to live until 1954, to the age of 84, but mostly confined to his bed, chair and wheelchair. He was no longer able to stand or hold a paintbrush for very long. He suffered chronic pain and his eyesight became quite poor.
However, he turned his unforeseen hardship into an opportunity for a new artistic life of a different sort. He in effect invented a whole new medium of art, inspired by his love for birds. One day Matisse cut the shape of a bird out of white paper. He liked the look of it, and asked his assistant to pin it to the wall to hide a mark that was on it. He then cut out a few more. Soon the walls were full of cutouts in the shape of birds, fish and marine plant life. Matisse directed his assistant to move the cut-out pieces around until he was pleased with how they looked on the walls.
He continued to cut out shapes from painted sheets of paper to decorate his walls. He called it “drawing with scissors.” It was a unique art form. Using cut-outs of painted paper, he created a new world on his walls, even a swimming pool that surrounded the walls of his room. He couldn’t go to the swimming pool, so he created one for himself.
Sometimes, the colors he used for these paper cut-outs were so bright that he had to wear sunglasses to protect his eyes.
Matisse saw his new creations as an artistic rebirth. His cut-out creations are striking to the human eye, having extraordinary appeal through color and sharp lines, pulsating with an arresting vitality. Reflecting on Matisse’s intentional decision to let go of the past and allow a “second life” to come into being, a short poem by the poet-artist William Blake titled Eternity comes to mind.
He who binds to himself a joy
Does the winged life destroy
He who kisses the joy as it flies
Lives in eternity's sunrise
In the midst of profound struggle, Matisse consciously chose to focus on gratitude and optimism: “I didn't expect to recover from my second operation but since I did, I consider that I'm living on borrowed time. Every day that dawns is a gift to me and I take it in that way. I accept it gratefully without looking beyond it. I completely forget my physical suffering and all the unpleasantness of my present condition and I think only of the joy of seeing the sun rise once more and of being able to work a little bit, even under difficult conditions.”
Showing his intentionality toward living into life’s fullness, he said, “There are always flowers for those who want to see them. . . . There are cathedrals everywhere for those with eyes to see them.” While Matisse’s surgical ordeal altered his life forever, he had survived. And his way forward was almost child-like – requiring only simple sheets of paper painted by his assistants, scissors and pins to place the cut-outs on the wall. It was Matisse’s form of a victory-lap. And today, many art historians view his cut-outs as his most exceptional artwork. Out of hardship, and even near death, he experienced “new life” - a radical reinvention.
The name Matisse gave his little home in Vence in southern France was prophetic - Villa le Rêve, Dream House. In the midst of his confinement, while living in a war zone, with shells exploding in his garden, remarkable art was created under its roof, albeit never easily. While Matisse was practically housebound for the last 14 years of his life due to various near fatal illnesses, his inner reality reflected a whole new way of being.
During the final years of Matisse’s life his new art form became the inspiration for what he called his “masterpiece,” the Chapel of the Rosary in Vence, which he considered to be his culminating work. In 1948, a nun who had been his nurse approached him for his thoughts on the interior décor of a nearby chapel. He decided to take on the project himself, and ended up designing every feature of the chapel, often inspired by his cut-out paper patterns, including the exterior, interior, stained-glass windows, furniture, and liturgical vestments.
Matisse worked on the chapel for four years, making the cut-outs from his bed or drawing the designs on his bedroom wall with a long stick that had a charcoal tip. The chapel's most famous feature is its vibrant stained-glass windows, which use bold colors - yellow, green, and blue - to reflect its Mediterranean surroundings. He designed them from his bed entirely in cut and colored paper. His depiction of the Stations of the Cross reflects the pain he was himself experiencing, emphasizing grief and broken limbs on graffiti-like figures.
In effect he transposed his own bedroom into a chapel. Once when asked about his belief in God he responded, “Do I believe in God? Yes, when I work. . . . I feel so helped by someone who makes me do things that are beyond my control.”
You cannot stand in the Matisse Chapel without being inspired by how he chose to respond to what could be called a “lifequake.” Matisse’s hardship became an exceptional instrument of creative inspiration, reminding us that the Divine Artist is exceedingly, endlessly, good and generous.
