Venus
Henri Matisse
HENRI MATISSE, 1952. GOUACHE ON PAPER.
In the late 1940s, Henri Matisse put down the paint brush and picked up the scissors. Cut paper became his primary medium, cutting paper into various shapes of vegetal and abstract form, and then arranging them in lively compositions. The cut-outs renewed Matisse’s commitment to form and color as his ability to paint the intricate, emotive works of his youth left him as his body aged. They were questioned everything that had come before, asking the nature of the status of the work of art, whether as a unique object, environment, ornament, or a hybrid of all of these. There is a tension inherent in this, the cut-outs existed between traditional artworks and decoration, they are at once a finished product and a work in process, drawings and colour fields. The cut-outs reduce formal ideas to simplicity, bringing Matisse towards the end of his life back to his most youthful self. Simple, unassuming, and remarkable in their depth.