Henri Matisse and the cursed armchair

One spring day in 1906, on his way to visit Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse noticed that all the sidewalk urinals in the Montmartre neighborhood of Paris were covered in the same graffiti:

“House painters, stay away from Matisse!”

“Matisse has done more harm in a year than an epidemic!”

“Matisse causes insanity!”

Someone had posted leaflets warning house painters about white lead, a common ingredient in paint that could cause brain damage. A local wag replaced the words “white lead” with “Matisse” on every handbill.

Matisse irked the art world

Six months earlier at the Salon d’Automne exhibition sponsored by the French Academy of Fine Arts, Matisse shocked the critics with his new style of painting. In a flood of contradictions, they accused him of being both overly emotional and devoid of feeling….both too sloppy and too mechanical.

Henri Matisse painting, "Open Window, Collioure (1905)" painted in the Fauvism style of bright, complementary colors placed side by side in thick brushstrokes. Sailboats can be seen through the open window. Three flower pots sit on a ledge. — Henri Matisse, *Open Window, Collioure (1905)*

Matisse wasn’t trying to create controversy:

To me, the Impressionists’s aesthetic seemed as insufficient as the techniques in the Louvre. So I asked myself, “What do I want?” For a brief time I just wanted to exalt all the colors together, sacrificing none of them.
Henri Matisse, Art News interview, 1951

He painted like this for three years. So did Maurice de Vlaminck, André Derain, and a dozen other artists who disconnected color from the conventional idea of naturalism. Art critic Louis Vauxcelles called them les fauves (the wild beasts) and the epithet stuck. Their style became known as Fauvism, and Matisse was crowned king of the wild things.

Alarmed that his work was being dismissed as a joke, the artist publicly defended his basic tenets:

What I dream of is an art of balance, devoid of troubling or depressing subject matter…..a soothing, calming influence on the mind…..something like a good armchair that provides relaxation from physical fatigue.
Henry Matisse, “Notes of a Painter,” 1908

Henri Matisse painting, "Interior at Nice (1917-18)." A comfortable-looking green armchair sits in the center of an empty hotel room. Through the window is a view of the sea. — Henri Matisse, *Interior at Nice (1917-18)*

Regrettably, comparing his work to a good armchair inspired far too many reviews like this one:

Matisse is less a pictorial artist than a designer for stuffs to be sold by the yard. The larger his canvases, the more vapid he becomes; and when blown to mural dimensions, his work is nothing but leaping silhouettes and empty gestures lacking in human significance.
Art critic Thomas Craven, “New York Herald Tribune,” 1933

“My goal is to create a translucent setting for the mind,” countered Matisse, trying to reupholster that armchair metaphor. In other words, Interior at Nice isn’t just a hotel room on the French Riviera, it’s your moment of Zen.

Are simple pleasures a serious subject?

If you suffer from chronic anxiety, what do you paint? If you’re Matisse, you paint snatches of happiness to quiet your worried mind.

Does this mean he wasn’t serious enough as an artist? “Anyone who thinks so must have a low opinion of joy,” replied New Yorker art critic Peter Schjeldahl.

In photographs, Matisse is always buttoned up in a suit, and people have deduced from it that he was dull and timid and relatively shallow. Matisse was the exact opposite.

He was a passionate man. Painting devoured him, it ate him up, and it also tormented him. He couldn’t sleep, he had nightmares, he had panic attacks. His life was never easy or simple or comfortable at all.
Matisse biographer Hilary Spurling, The Charlie Rose Show, 2006

One person who never made the mistake of underestimating Matisse was Pablo Picasso, who often stopped by the older man’s studio to see what he was up to. The two men occasionally painted the same subject.

(left) Pablo Picasso painting, "Woman with a Book (1932)." A woman sits in a comfortable armchair. She is holding a book. She appears to be looking at the artist. The bodice of her dress reveals her breasts.

(right) Henri Matisse painting, "Reader Against a Black Background (1939)." A woman sitting in a wooden armchair is reading a book, which is open on a table. Also on the table is a large pot of flowers. The woman is leaning her head on her hand. The background of the painting is solid black. — (L) Pablo Picasso, *Woman with a Book (1932)*
(R) Henri Matisse, *Reader Against a Black Background (1939)*

In Picasso’s Woman with a Book, a young woman is sitting in a good armchair, although she’s not reading. She’s seducing the artist in a manner that is all too credible. Picasso had a habit of confusing painting with keeping a diary.

In Matisse’s picture, I don’t see the same level of self-enthrallment. The woman is reading or maybe her thoughts have turned inward. Somehow, the luminous black wall conveys both anxiety and tenderness.

If you have never painted, you cannot fully appreciate what lies behind Matisse’s mastery of pure color. It is comparatively easy to achieve a certain unity in a picture either by allowing one color to dominate or by muting all the colors. Matisse did neither. He clashed his colors together like cymbals and the effect was like a lullaby.
Art critic John Berger, “Selected Essays,” 1954

Why aren’t we bored by Matisse?

Picasso and Matisse lived through two world wars and The Great Depression. Picasso’s work can be cynical. Matisse’s work is rejuvenating. He painted moments of repose in order to catch his breath before returning to the turmoils of life. Peace of mind is what he craved and what he wanted to bestow on us.

Matisse’s intense feelings are, in a way, why we’re still looking at his paintings. Because although they look so beautiful….they are brilliantly colored paintings of great balance and serenity….there are depths behind them.
Matisse biographer Hilary Spurling, The Charlie Rose Show, 2006

Henry Matisse painting, "The Sorrows of the King (1952). An orange guitar lays across a black, abstract chair with protruding white hands that suggest someone is sitting in the chair. The background colors are lively shades of blue, green, and magenta. Yellow leaves are sprinkled across the canvas. — Henry Matisse, *The Sorrows of the King (1952)*

Matisse died in 1954. His final self-portrait, The Sorrows of the King, synthesizes concepts that were in his mind for most of his working life. The central black form represents the artist sitting in a good armchair, surrounded by the pleasures he will miss dearly: family, flowers, sunlight, music. So much joy rises and radiates from this picture, I forgot for a moment that he was bedridden with abdominal cancer and exhaustion.

None of us can say what would have happened if Matisse had abandoned art to become a troubadour, but I have a hunch his lyrics would have sounded something like this —

And I thought to myself
Wouldn’t it be great
Wouldn’t it be great if just for one moment
Everything was all right

I would give this to you, baby
I would give you a moment
Where everything’s good
Everything’s safe
Everything’s warm
A moment where everything is all right

“Mystic Eyes” by Van Morrison, additional lyrics by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers

Postscript: If you happen to be in Houston, Philadelphia, or Riehen…

Vertigo of Color: Matisse, Derain, and the Origins of Fauvism is at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, thru May 27, 2024. Click on the link for details.

Matisse and Renoir: New Encounters will be at the Barns Foundation from June 23 thru September 8, 2024.

Matisse: Invitation to the Voyage will be at Fondation Beyeler in Riehen, Switzerland, from September 22 thru January 26, 2025.

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