No comments about Henri Matisse: The early years in Nice, 1916-1930.

1 comments about Cezanne And The Dawn Of Modern Art.

1. Clearly written with good choices of examples for demonstrating Cezanne's influence. Hardbound cloth wrapped book in excellent condition. Very good color separations and printing. I recommend this book for anyone studying the work of Cezanne and his place in art history.

1 comments about Henri Matisse: Jazz (Pegasus Library).

1. First, the good news. The book itself is beautifully printed. Pages are heavy stock - I've seen flimsier business cards. Color is rich, and only one page had any registration problem that I could see. This is more than just a monograph about the artist, it reproduces a book by the artist (and I'm grateful for the English translation). I have a passion for primary sources - Matisse isn't among my favorite artists, but I'll listen when an undeniable master speaks.

   Unfortunately, two major features of the book interfere with my full enjoyment of it. First, the original Jazz interleaved images with text in Matisse's own hand. A little of the hand-written text has been reproduced, but certainly not all of it. The original relationship of text and image has been lost. Second, and related, is that the translation appears in the back of the book. It's only a minor nuisance to flip back and forth between the book's real content and back matter. I had real problems, though, with the fact that the back matter gives the whole of Matisse's text, but the main content does not. The translated part gives no indication of what it provides that the reproduction doesn't, so it was a "Where's Waldo" exercise, trying to resynchronize my reading with viewing of the images. Perhaps economic decisions about printing forced the omissions. I can still wish that different tradeoffs had been used in the choice, or that the book's organization could have compensated better for the losses.

   A final point, and a relatively minor one, is that Matisse provided a visual index or table of contents, showing a thumbnail sketch of each work in the book. I was fascinated by Matisse's own view of what mattered in each composition. The way it's reproduced looks a bit like a ransom note, however. Each annotation has been cut out into its own little box and laid out according to the book designer's idea of proper organization. Perhaps there is good reason for this; maybe the thumbnails would have been illegibly small if the page were reproduced to scale. Still, I would have liked to see the original page's organization, even if the reproduction also showed the sketches at readable size.

   Despite the book's flaws, it seems to be an adequate presentation of a coherent body of compositions. Warts and all, I looking forward to enjoying the book over and over.

No comments about Drawings of Henri Matisse.

No comments about Matisse (Masterpieces: Artists and Their Works).

No comments about Bonnard/Matisse: Letters Between Friends.

No comments about The Cut-Outs of Henri Matisse.

No comments about First Impressions: Henri Matisse (First Impressions).

No comments about Henri Matisse: Masterpieces 30 postcards.

1 comments about Matisse: A Second Life.

1. Before "Matisse: A Second Life" appeared, an exhibition focusing solely on the late work of this greatest of French masters had never been seen in France. Unlike most exhibition catalogues, this book is no mere compendium of pretty pictures, but a serious contribution to art history which will have lasting scholarly value long after the show's close. The "Second Life" of the title refers to the last few years of Matisse's existence, from about 1940 to 1954. After the chaos which accompanied the fall of France to German troops, Matisse fell ill with duodenal cancer and had to endure a serious operation early in 1941. Matisse nearly died during the operation, and remained a semi-invalid for the rest of his life (making the achievement of his last years all the more compelling). Rather than allow his health problems to embitter him, Matisse saw his tenuous survival as a new lease on life, a blessing of additional time in which to realize his fondest ambitions. Ironically, despite - or perhaps because of - his health problems, the 1940s were to see an extraordinary flowering of Matisse's art, from the creation of some of his most highly regarded paintings to the invention of a completely new medium - the famed paper cut-outs. "A Second Life" is the first exhibition to survey this critical period in any detail. Organized around the correspondence between Matisse and his friend, poet and artist Andre Rouvyere, this exhibition brought together the insights available to us via this exchange of letters and presented these invaluable keys to the mystery of creation alongside a number of Matisse's most important works from the period. The book itself is beautiful - the color plates are of the finest quality and the spare, elegant design is ravishing. While may of the works here - such as the plates from 1947's "Jazz" - are world-famous, "Matisse: A Second Life" also shows many less well-known (but not lesser) works. Careful study of these images demonstrates that the cut-outs did not develop in isolation, but in fact were the solution to Matisse's long-held desire to unite color and drawing into a single medium, an effect which he achieved in oil paint between 1942 and 1948 after a lifetime of experiment. For those who love Matisse's work or are curious about how artists think, this book is an essential addition to your library.