Matisse The Cut-Outs - Tate Modern Sept 2014

Art - No doubt the Matisse exhibition at the Tate was the highlight of this art summer. Of any summer. The first large room was my favourite - to see the entirity of the Jazz book he knocked up in the 40s was a delight.It was published in 1947 by his Greek friend Teriade, with whom he had collaborated with the Verve magazine.Only 100 original books were released, composed of 20 colour prints and accompanying text. The finished article was exhibited together with the original "Maquettes". Pins were still in situ, slightly rusty and bent, but still doing the job. Each page featured a picture and was mirrored with text opposite. Sometimes the subject was obvious, but a fun challenge came from those with a weird French title which gave us Anglais no clues. So you had to work to find out what you were looking at. The circus themes were joyous fun, sublime collages and brush work with bold colours adding to a lucious extravaganza of pleasure for the eyes and brain. The Trapeze was super, as is The Fall of Icarus. Despite the subject matter of the latter, the sheer positivity is all encompassing and winning.

This is one of the great works of the 20th century; bold, unapologetic, a melange of material & colour and a happy mess of glue and rough edges. To see the original work added to the experience twofold. I must have spent an hour among the crowd, lapping it up. There's no anguish here, unless the scrawl of words that accompany the pictures express another story. I gave up trying to make it out, the words are written with a brush and the joined up writing is in keeping with what appears to be a stream of consciousness type commentary on art. Worry not, the pictures express a childs eye joy of which this old man, stuck in his wheelchair, determined to wring every scrap of genius out of his broken body, was a magnificent standard bearer.

The confident large compositons such as The Snail followed, as did the Blue Nudes - perhaps his most famous image? Then designs for the Chapel in Vence,including the vestments and stained glass windows, to which he devoted huge amounts of energy and time, as it was fatefully running out on him. Another awesome treat; first you see the rough cut design by Matisse, then the finished window, a lovely melange of blues, green, white and yellow, backlit to maximum effect.
What a fantastic show !
P Budgie 25-09-14