5 comments about Chasing Matisse: A Year in France Living My Dream.

1. The author, a writer and artist, is fascinated by the work of Matisse. He and his wife, also a writer, sell their house, leave their desk jobs and go off to France to follow in the footsteps of Matisse. The author chronicles their travels to the places that inspired Matisse - Paris, Collioure in the Pyrenees, Corsica, Belle-Ile off the coast of Britany and the South of France.
   
   In these places the author learns not just to look but also to see. The facts of Matisse's life and his development as an artist are interwoven with the travel adventures of the author and his wife as they live their dream of starting over in a foreign country. A look into the soul of an artist and what we can learn from him if we seek to live the creative life, this book is vastly superior to the shallowness of "C'est La Vie" by Susie Gershman and her vacuous tale of leaving the US to live in Paris.
   
   The only thing missing from "Chasing Matisse" is a map so that the reader can see the locations of the various places that are visited. It's also helpful to have on hand a copy of "Henri Matisse: A Retrospective", Museum of Modern Art 1992, while you read so that you can see the paintings that the author mentions extensively in the book.



2. I'm an American living in France for over 5 years now and I am an amateur painter. And I really like Matisse. So I was really excited when I found this book. I really like the author's humor, he turns what could be boring descriptions of their trip into very funny tales. The book is a mix of a peek into their lives, their adventure in France, the characters they meet, and oh yes, Matisse. I learned a lot in this book. I thoroughly enjoyed the author's sketches and his website.
   
   However, all that said, the book left me wanting more. I got the impression that at the end the author simply got tired of writing or ran out of material. For example, their summer in france only gets a few pages. What was the impact of his search for Matisse? How did it impact his art? Did he just stop chasing Matisse 3 months before he came home? I also would have liked to see more of his sketches as they really helped to imagine the places they went, the hotel rooms, etc.
   
   Overall it was a great book. If you are interested in France, Matisse, or painting, I highly recommend this book!



3. Here I am trapped in a dull grey/brown Northeast winter when I picked up this book and went on a great trip! As an artist I really loved Mr. Morgan's passion for Matisse, for art in general and I loved his sketches! As a traveler who never gets to travel enough I loved the journey he took me on through France. As a matter of fact I'm so inspired that I'm heading to France this June and I'm going to take another long look at Matisse! So if you love art...this is a terrific book, if you love travel...this is a terrific book. If you love both then you're a terrific person who will really enjoy this book!



4. This is a book I'm sure I'll reread many times. The author combines humor with depth, and the sense of adventure is inspiring. Right now I'm smiling, just remembering how pleasurable it was to read this book. author (unrelated to me) really did his research, too; I'm now thinking about Arnheim and Elins with renewed interest -- and I'll pursue some of the other books about Matisse as well.



5. Chasing Matisse: A Year in France Living My Dream
   
   What a load of pretentious nonsense! The author combines samples of his own work (which are child-like), a poor travelogue of France and a brief, dry biography of a great painter (with few original insights) in an offering that had me bored from page one. He asks for sympathy for his financially 'risk-taking' venture whilst telling us of his efforts to sell his house (at $79,000 under value) and fly his children over to France to celebrate Christmas whilst regailing us with descriptions of the expensive meals and swish hotels he stays in. We don't need the constant admiring prose for Henri's work - it speaks for itself.

4 comments about Matisse on Art, Revised edition (Documents of Twentieth-Century Art).

1. Here are compiled the writings of and interviews with Matísse. It is not only about his estethic concerns but also about his feeling for life. The latter was his underlying motif in his paintings. This book is very interesting also for people without artistic concerns since Matísse here conveys his fine-tuned philosophy of life. A highly rewarding book that one can return to many times.

   Mats Winther




2. Painters are often their own worst enemies when speaking about their work, obscuring rather than enlightening. But not Matisse. The intelligent and painter knew the trap that speaking of his art could be, yet his own comments on it are intelligent and illuminating. This book is fine reading that's a help to the working painter, as well as the viewer. You'll look at Matisse's great paintings with a fresh eye after reading it. And that's what matters.



3. Painters are often their own worst enemies when speaking about their work, obscuring rather than enlightening. But not Matisse. The intelligent and painter knew the trap that speaking of his art could be, yet his own comments on it are intelligent and illuminating. This book is fine reading that's a help to the working painter, as well as the viewer. You'll look at Matisse's great paintings with a fresh eye after reading it. And that's what matters.



4. If you want to extend the boundaries of ordinary perception, in order to produce unique, distinctive visions read "Matisse on Art." It is a critical piece of literature written by a masterfully innovative painter. I recommend it as a professional artist for nearly 20 years and as an art professor.

5 comments about The Unknown Matisse.

1. This is a genuinely inspiring biography, clearly written and deeply felt, powerfully communicating the revolutionary ideas of what painting could and should be that drove, and were driven by, Henri Matisse. Spurling vividly describes Matisse's struggles to balance his need to paint with financial reality and his society's disdain, often using the artist's own letters and recollections to depict his growing obsession with color and impatience with representation.

   Although I eagerly await the second volume, the true measure of Spurling's success is my anticipation in revisiting Matisse's paintings -- my enjoyment of his work has been increased immeasurably by reading this book.




2. Henri Matisse (1869-1954) came from the somber northern region of France. The landscape of his youth was sketched in the somber colors of a provinical childhood. His family were seed merchants, sober and no nonsense in their approach to the realities of life. As Matisse grew his art expanded as he journeyed to Paris and to the South of France where he discovered the glories of coloration in his art. Matisse was the greatest of the Fauvist painters; the chief rival of Picasso and the grand old man of French painting.
   In this first volume of her life of Matisse, Hilary Spurling the British born biographer draws France in the dawn of the 20th
   century as we see Matisse struggle from poverty to stability. He was supported by a loving wife, good friends and a genius which
   burst forth in all its glory as the great master continue to grow in his art.
   The book is well illustrated, detailed in its description of Matisse's families, friends and opponents and well worth the reader's time.
   With the current exhibition of Matisse-Picasso at the Metropolitan Museum of Mordern Art it is a pleasure to turn to Spurling's fine volume on Matisse to gain further insights into this giant of modern art. I recommend this book to everyone from art expert to the educated general reader seeking further insights into the evolution of a painter of genius.



3. Matisse has always suffered from bad press. In his home town he was known as a triple failure: He couldn't take over the family seed store, he didn't make a career in law work and he threw away a chance to be a popular Salon artist. When people saw his latest paintings, they were often overwhelmed and unprepared for what they saw. Only a few visionary collectors and fellow artists understood his ground-breaking efforts. Picasso and those who supported Picasso felt that they had to run down Matisse to help their own cause . . . despite having "borrowed" heavily from Matisse. Later, most of Matisse's early masterpieces were hidden away in foreign, private collections while crowds jeered at his latest work.
   
   The pain of all this was immense for Matisse. But his private sorrows were made even greater by the difficulties he had in developing his style, the birth of an illegitimate child whom he acknowledged who suffered from serious health problems, and the poverty that dogged him until he was around 40. What is less well known is that his in-laws became embroiled in one of the most celebrated scandals of all time in France, and Matisse found himself drawn into saving them.
   
   Ms. Spurling does well in capturing the agony of being Matisse.
   
   Her style though leaves something to be desired. Much of the information is superficial rather than revealing. In many cases, I felt like I was reading someone's unreflective daily diary. An exception was the material on the Humbert Scandal which Ms. Spurling has also written about quite well in La Grande Therese.
   
   Ms. Spurling also could have included more about Matisse's art in this book.
   
   But you will learn a lot about Matisse from this book that you won't find in most other sources.
   
   I found the recent companion volume, Matisse the Master, to be much more rewarding. If you decide to read only one of the two books, I suggest that one. But you may decide to come back and read this one later, as I did.



4. I was impatiently awaiting the arrival of The Unknown Matisse and have not been disappointed. Hilary Spurling has truly written a superb book. For all those who are interested in the passing from the old school of art to the new concepts that gave way to modern art as we understand it, this book is for you. This book compares favorably with John Richardson's massive Picasso biography. The Unknown Matisse is a book I will keep going back to over the years.
   
   James Townsend



5. i loved this book - many new insights on matisse, the preeminent modern artist - very well researched and written -

5 comments about Matisse the Master: A Life of Henri Matisse: The Conquest of Colour, 1909-1954.

1. Those two rival giants of 20th century avant-garde art, Picasso and Matisse - whose work was so publicly antithetical - privately "drew closer than ever before" in the last decade of Matisse's life. "They swapped notes and compared problems," writes Hilary Spurling in her mammoth and compelling, revelatory Matisse the Master.
   
   This is the second and final volume of her biography of this extraordinary French artist, covering the years 1909 to 1954. Half a century after his death, the first biography of Matisse is complete. Matisse will never seem quite the same again.
   
   "Picasso complained," she goes on, "about the effortless, inborn sense of beauty, balance and proportion against which he had fought savagely all his life, Matisse lamented the lack of natural facility that had made his entire career a relentless uphill struggle."
   
   And yet facility, not to mention frivolity, superficiality, decorativeness, childish incompetence, and irrelevance were too often the accusations Matisse suffered from contemporaries, particularly in the 1920s and 30's.
   
   Other writers have certainly recognized his "uphill struggle," the exhaustive complexities that assailed him as he aimed at purity, serenity, and simplicity in his luminous art. But the very scale and detail of this biography really conveys the relentlessness of this struggle. Even in his crowning achievement, the Chapel of the Rosary in Vence in southern France, his habitual practice of abandoning work when it did not measure up and of starting over again until it did, had not left him. The Dominican brother who had first stimulated the project "was astonished, even appalled by the way Matisse worked, especially by how calmly he accepted setbacks." Spurling is clear that it is a simplistic mistake to be fooled by the apparent ease or spontaneity of his paintings, drawings, and paper cut-outs into thinking them facile or shallow.
   
   In fact, her biography repeatedly emphasizes the wide discrepancies between Matisse's reputation and the actuality as revealed in the wealth of letters and documentary evidence available to her through the cooperation of Matisse's heirs. Again and again his new work, when first seen in public, sparked outrage. This, he believed, was the result of being a truly questing artist inventing a "new language," an artist always "fifty years ahead of his time."
   
   The "fauve" phase of his work, and then the great paintings "Dance" and "Music" painted for the remarkable Russian collector Shchukin, shocked and dismayed; yet shock was hardly his prime motivation.
   
   Matisse was never a "half-measure" artist. There was, by his own admission, particularly at the outset of a new work, a kind of violence that called for sublimation. Yet his distress was extreme when work that was for him the height of ecstasy or extravagant joy, work that had liberated brilliant color and expressed light as never before, caused furious and humiliating dismissal.
   
   In another respect, his personal appearance often resembled that of an insurance salesman - bespectacled and sober-suited - and was so different from his art that some unperceptive people (notably in the English "Bloomsbury" literary set) failed to see beyond the mask and thought him bourgeois and pompous. Spurling's testimony frequently shows him to have been neither.
   
   This biography presents much more than a glimpse behind the scenes. It discloses a ruthlessly dedicated career, a massive determination, and, by giving flesh to the hidden shadows of the man, it provokes a stimulatingly fresh look at his art. The vagaries and traumas of his life and times, however idealistic and protective might be the hermetic nature of his working practice, are nevertheless shown to have had a surprisingly direct bearing on its mood and character. Paintings made during World War I in particular can now be seen to have a stringent, grim stature somehow not evident before.
   
   In his lifetime, France was invaded three times by the Germans. War horrified Matisse and he was deeply tortured by his incapacity to fight. Sometimes he managed to pull up his drawbridge and contribute to the war effort by simply continuing to work. Spurling settles not a few myths about him, one of which was that in World War II he indulged himself in the fleshpots of Nice. This absolute myth is not unconnected with another - that he sexually exploited his many models. Spurling presents evidence that suggests that instead he was scrupulous in observing the propriety of the artist-model relationship. His models often expressed appreciation.
   
   This book is not only about Matisse, but also looks penetratingly into the lives of his family, friends, and assistants - notably his wife, his daughter, and his last assistant, Lydia Delectorskaya. These three women, whose lives were overwhelmed in their fierce dedication to the artist, were heroic. After many years, the first two apparently needed to distance themselves from the domination; Matisse was no exception to the tendency of "great" artists to be overweeningly egocentric - making the most impossible demands on others because they also never hesitate to make impossible demands on themselves.
   
   Yet Matisse also had a counterbalancing generosity and sensitivity toward others. Spurling, writing about the exactions he imposed on his assistants as the Vence chapel exhaustingly took shape, observes: "Even those who most bitterly resented his exactions at the time agreed afterwards that Matisse took much but gave more." And the reader never doubts that what he gave to posterity in his art was incalculably rich.



2. Those of us who live today are spoiled in one sense that we don't realize: We can see Matisse's work on display and appreciate its evolution. That wasn't possible until just the last few decades. Until then, many of his most powerful works were locked up in the Soviet system and not on display or were in the hands of reclusive collectors.
   
   That's an important point to remember when you wonder why Picasso has gotten so much more attention than Matisse, you could always see Picasso's work and Picasso courted attention.
   
   Matisse, by comparison, found that it took all of his energies just to create art. There was very little time left over for his family and the rest of the world. He also wasn't inclined to seek out those who could explain and defend his work. As a result, he was widely misunderstood and underappreciated during his lifetime. This book corrects many of those problems.
   
   Of particularly interest is the finding that although Matisse spent his life painting voluptuous nudes, he didn't indulge in having sexual relations with his models. Rather he used the sexual tension the models created in him to help inspire a better work. The models did become, ultimately, the undoing of his marriage . . . but not for the reasons you expect.
   
   As fascinating as he is as an artist, he even more interesting as a creative person and head of a family. Matisse saw his family's role as being there to serve art. Although in a crisis, he would show up to encourage and aid family members and friends . . . usually he was off painting or sculpting by himself in sunnier climes. The rest of the time, they were doing administrative tasks, critiquing the works, staying out of his way and helping him enjoy a tranquil existence.
   
   Anyone who wants a deeper appreciation of Matisse's work will learn from this volume. Although the book would have been better with more color plates, the pages are generously illustrated with black and white reproductions to give you a sense of his focus and development.
   
   For artists, the book's many insights into the pros and cons of relationships with collectors and dealers will make the volume a "must have" item.
   
   I didn't know the background of many of his best works, such as Jazz. It was a pleasure to better understand why he did them.
   
   In particular, you will come away with a new appreciation for Matisse's use of color to capture emotion. Think of The Red Studio and the Conversation.
   
   I seldom savor biographies as much as I did this one. I plan to go back now and read the first volume in the series, The Unknown Matisse.
   
   Ms. Spurling's extensive use of Matisse's letters (and especially reproducing the funny little cartoons he liked to put in them) made the book a special joy.
   
   Nice work, Ms. Spurling!



3. Such a wonderful book to read! After seeing his works of art at the museums in New York (MET - MOMA); in Maryland (BMA); and in California (San Francisco), it is a joy to the human spirit to read this biography. This book offers the reader all the underlying events contributing to each of his major works of art. It allows us to better appreciate his extreme and intense efforts to create; it allows us to recognize his unquestionable courage to be himself while many of the art world turned away from him; and one will learn of his life long love of the natural world (birds and plants) and his view of the importance of the spirit of man. Further, this book allows the reader to see his social frustration; one can learn of his powerful drive (so red hot) to create, and one will see in words how he commanded everyone around him to assist him in his zeal to achieve his personal best in art. As the book denotes towards the end even Picasso, the great competitor, stated in a discussion of one of Matisse's later works (the Chapel in Nice): 'Only Matisse could do this!' Read to learn, read to know, and read to be more deeply passionate in love with Matisse as I am!



4. "Artists are like plants whose growth in the thickets of the jungle depends on the air they breathe, and the mud or stones among which they grow by chance and without choice." Matisse's words coupled with his life as proof of what van Gogh said about the love of art making one lose real love make the reader feel the pain, the joy and the rich colours of his life all that much more. He made us understand.
   
   Hilary Spurling's masterpiece (savoured by me for endless months, days and hours) has been an extraordinary experience I never wanted to end - both volumes. And now her biography is all locked in my mind - hopefully, to be recalled again and again in painting after painting and life experience after love experience - thanks to all the years of her hard work and research.
   
   I am now filled with the colours of the Master - just as he'd installed 'The Tree of Life' in "a change of key that brought an extraordinary clarity, serenity and stillness to the music of the chapel." If the student of art, the student of life might only read pp. 455-456, he/she would be amazed at one whose talents were mocked ("any child could paint better than Matisse." ... "...his inventions seemed not simply monstrous but blasphemous as well.") and would ache to have had the chance to be a simple fly on the wall in those last years of his life when the many energies swirled about his taxi beds and many wond'rous studios ever-changing, metamorphosing, revealing and displaying, nurturing, teaching... revolutionary!
   
   Let us not forgot his bedrocks - the women who made all his successes possible are miraculous and astonishing... Lydia, Matisse's remarkable genius manager (we should all be so lucky to know such a dynamo); Amelie, his extraordinary wife and her 'nine lives'; of course, Marguerite, his daughter, whose amazing vitality and strength of character resounds on almost every page of his life story; she was one (by her great courage) who humbled him more than anyone else could; and the countless models and interns...
   
   As a side note... I remember in January 2006 when Hilary Spurling "scooped one of Britain's most prestigious literary awards," Whitbread Book of the Year prize, just as the big scandal exploded about Oprah's book club "author" protégé/scam artist James Frey was exposed. I thought to myself, "There is still a god!" What kind of mindless person would turn to Oprah for advice on what to read in the first place?! What does she know about literature?
   
   I am humbled at Hilary Spurling's great accomplishment and would love to meet her one day so I could sing her the song I wrote about Matisse and the story of his blue butterfly. [...]
   
   "The blue of that butterfly and Cezanne
   made you more of a spiritual man."



5. Superb! Not only one of the best biographies I've read, it get's into the mind of the artist. This is not an easy thing to do. I read it as I would a novel, it was very hard to put down.

5 comments about A Magical Day with Matisse (Mini Masters).

1. My daughter is 17 months old and loves this series of books. The artwork is representative of the original work and the words do a great job of telling a story for each picture in a descriptive way without "squashing creativity" for the reader.
   
   One minor concern, if you have any objection to nudity, there are pictures of representational nudes in the Matisse book that are indicative of his work. My husband and I discussed it and introduced it to our daughter who didn't seem to care at all. She just loved the "people dancing."



2. Just the thing if you want to spend some time reading something that is both cute and educational!



3. I love all 5 of the books in this series, but I just returned this one with the Matisse artwork.
   
   I just felt that pictures of a bunch of BUCK NAKED PEOPLE sitting around playing instruments and a group of BUCK NAKED PEOPLE dancing around in a circle just weren't appropriate for my infant son's collection of books right now (well, maybe EVER). I wish someone had told me BEFORE I had purchased it . . . it's more than just 'bobbing sailboats' and 'tickled toes' . . .



4. It's nothing your kid hasn't seen before. My niece, she's thrilled there are other people who run around nakie, just like she (and most toddlers) prefers to do.



5. I love these series of books. My daughter instantly loved this book and she's only 15 mos. old. I started reading "In the garden with Van Gogh" when she was 6 mos. old. She loves them both now. The rhymes are very cute as well.

No comments about Henri Matisse (Taschen Basic Art Series).

2 comments about Henri Matisse (Getting to Know the World's Greatest Artists).

1. I was really impressed with not only how wonderfully the book related to children, but to the colorful art work as well. My son asked lots of questions and related this book to his life.



2. Mike Venezia makes famous artists come to life. I have used these books in my reading class and have inspired reluctant readers to read non-fiction. Ages 6-11 enjoy the lively language and great reproductions.

5 comments about Dance Me to the End of Love (Art & Poetry).

1. Dance Me to the End of Love is a supremely great song, but the sketchy Matisse paintings that promiscuously drape this book do nothing to enhance it.



2. It's hard to believe Matisse did not collaborate on this book. The perfect symbiosis of the poetry and illustrations truly dance you through to the end. I bought this book as a gift. I'm keeping it.



3. This edition of Leonard Cohen's song/poem with the artwork of Matisse is beautiful and the perfect gift for any engaged couple. If a man were to give this to me, I would have to melt before him. It could only be improved if a CD of L. Cohen was included with his deep, rich, smoky and phenomenally sexy voice bringing to life the dance.



4. Dance Me to the End of Love (Art & Poetry)
   
   this is a beautiful book which joins Leonard Cohen's poem/song with Henri Matisse's paintings - a fabulous gift for someone you love, whether or not they are a Leonard Cohen fan



5. comes from "Anthem" by Leonard Cohen, is well worth the read: That's How the Light Gets In: Memoir of a Psychiatrist by Susan Rako, M.D. Fans of Cohen will recognize "There is a crack, a crack in everything. That's how the light gets in." Rako, a near-contemporary of Leonard Cohen, has given us a remarkably candid and fascinating memoir -- notably well-written and a great read. The writing just flows.

5 comments about When Pigasso Met Mootisse.

1. This book is my daughter's favorite. We have read it every day for the past 9 or so months and she has most of the punch lines memorized, (e.g., "mootisse was not like the other bulls" "it was a modern art mess" "the silence was broken" "i'm tired of this crowded cow town"). After reading it the first time, she said she wanted to draw with paint. And she did. Now we do watercolors all the time and she knows that Picasso and Matisse were great artists. This book provided a fun and funny way for her to learn about two art masters and their styles while also teaching a lesson about conflict resolution.
   
   We have taken this book on flights across the country and overseas. The illustrations and the story engage my daughter to no end. The description of this book is for 4-8 year olds but unlike Roberto: The Insect Architect by Nina Laden (also a funny, well-illustrated book), I find Pigasso/Mootisse to be appropriate for a younger {pre}reader as well. I'm back to buy more copies as gifts for all the kids that I know.



2. Whether your kid knows who Picasso is or not, this is a fun play on Famous Artists and their feuding ways. My Kindergartener loves this book.



3. Such a humorous and educational way to learn about the two masters of 20th century modernism. My son has this book and I've given it to other kids and everyone loves it, and they amazingly retain and remember the facts about the real artists as well. Excellent way to expose your child to the arts in a way that's fun and memorable.



4. What a fantastic book to introduce some masters to your child. Wonderful, bright pictures and an adorable story!



5. This book was a great hit throughout my second grade art classes. They have been looking for characteristics of Picasso and Matisse in every art work we see. Then I read it to one of my first grade classes an hour before Christmas break began. They had so much fun creating self-portraits using the techniques of either one of these artists that several didn't want to leave the art room. I'd post some of their artwork if I could. It's been a wonderful experience.

3 comments about Henri Matisse: Drawing with Scissors: Drawing with Scissors (Smart About Art).

1. Cute, but not as substantial as I would have liked.



2. An amusing introduction to the artist Matisse that I highly recommend. Written as though it's an 8-yr-old's school report, it is accessible and very informative. It includes reproductions of Matisse art and biographical information. Loved it. And it was useful as a teaching tool.



3. I think it was cute for parents of the child, but not really worth purchasing, I expectsd a graft project book. Waste of money.