Henri Matisse described his cut-outs as works "drawn with scissors". Produced towards the end of his life, when the artist was confined to a wheelchair, these brilliant bursts of form and colour remain a delightful celebration of joie de vivre, nature and aesthetic harmony.

Drawing with scissors

How Matisse said goodbye with a feast of colourful shapes and patterns

Henri Matisse (1869-1954) was a fighting spirit. Despite the cancer he was diagnosed with in 1941, his increasing frailty and the limitations imposed by his wheelchair, nothing stopped this indomitable Frenchman from making art.In what he called "une seconde vie" (a second life), he embarked on an extraordinary period devoted to collage, pasting coloured pieces of paper into his gouaches découpés depicting birds, plants, flowers and female forms.
The collage technique, which emphasises colour and contrast, provokes sharp lines and vivid juxtapositions.In works such as The Fall of Icarus (1943), The Blue Nude (1952), The Snail (1953) and Lagavilla (1953), the clean forms and elemental structures nourish a compositional force that belies the decorative character of the work, which is as well organised as it is contagious in its joie de vivre.As his work progressed, Matisse's enthusiasm for the results resulted in larger and larger pieces, moving from small works to large, wall-sized murals.
As his end approached, Matisse took greater delight in the simplicity and brilliance of these pieces, going so far as to state: "Only what I have created after my illness constitutes my true self: free, independent...". In this essential work we review this joyful final chapter of Matisse's long and prodigious career, examining his famous cut-outs which condense the years the artist spent exploring the possibilities of composition, form and colour.

About the author

Gilles Néret (1933-2005) was an art historian, journalist, writer and museum curator. He founded the SEIBU museum and the Wildenstein gallery in Tokyo, edited the art magazines L'ŒilyConnaissance des Arts, and was awarded the Élie Faure prize in 1981. The numerous books he wrote for TASCHEN includeDalí The Pictorial Work, MatisseyErotica Universalis.

Publisher: Taschen