9 December 2021
Dinner party with Marguerite Matisse
A few years ago I read the wonderful biography of Henri Matisse in two volumes by Hillary Spurling, Matisse the Unknown, and Matisse the Master. In these generous books she opens up the stately doors of a conservative 19th century France allowing us to freely meander throughout its transition into a modern age where Art played a pivotal role back at the turn of the 20th century.
People forget how mocked and disparaged Matisse was for much of his early career. But two other great painters who suffered the same fate were Paul Cézanne and Vincent Van Gogh. To be fair, Cezanne, who had heard about the Dutch painter working in nearby Arles via their mutual friend Emile Bernard, had even thought Vincent was ‘crazy’. “Il est fou!” Declared Cezanne, but I’ve never been sure how Cezanne could have seen Vincent’s work in the first place. Did Emile Bernard bring a few paintings to Aix? Regardless, painters were, and still are, often misunderstood due to an unfortunate reputation and so whenever I wanted to throw a bomb into a boring dinner party in France I would announce:
“Let’s face it, you French, you hate painting!” I exclaimed it usually with delicate force as if I had said “J’accuse!” My point, though not always immediately understood, nor possibly even true, was always about how cerebral the French are as a cultural whole and that Painting was way too emotional for them to appreciate. At that point, the table would go silent and I knew I had put my foot into the apple tarte. I would then invariably develop my argument by proving it with examples. Essentially, I’d propose that “you French, love ideas way too much to appreciate an art form like Painting.” I’d plunge my sword further into the startled dinner party and exclaim, “but the British, now, these are people who truly love Painting because despite their squeamish attention to manners and social protocol, they are truly eccentric enough to possess a non-conformist streak unlike you, the French!" I would usually go further pontificating that "....the Brits are sufficiently odd enough to appreciate the softened sensuality of the messy nature of Painting. They love Painting as do the Dutch and the Danes, but the Belgians and italians too, yet remarkably at the same time all of them, they are all just as equally mad about Conceptual Art as you people are because they can all chew gum and drink beer at the same time."
I would soften slightly by admitting that ..."you are wonderful people you French, you're so are mad about Literature and Poetry and you adore contemporary Architecture and cool Opera, but more than anything, you worship the brilliance of a conversation. Your passion is really for ideas and razor sharp intelligence, so naturally, you are more comfortable with Conceptual Art than with mere visual imagery that might rip through your clever discourses like a table saw. The fact is, that you love Robert Wilson more than Robert Johnson."
I would finish across the slippery slope with an apologetic tone, then the debate around the table would heat up. This, along with desert was the best part of the evening. Of course, I loved almost everything about France, and the French on the whole. My earliest teacher was Cyrano de Bergerac whom I read about in school at the impressionable age of fourteen. And I loved him for all the very same qualities with which I chose to insult my dinner companions.
Like all nations the French are full of pride. If you were to say to a French person; “France is a wonderful country, I love it, I adore everything about it!” They might first look hard at you, the respond by complaining about all that's wrong with it, “voyons, les impots, les greves...etc, etc...” But on another day or week, if you were to tell that same person that France was a mess because of the taxes and all the strikes, etc, etc... they would almost certainly raise themselves up a little and tell you about the best wines, cheeses, and education, etc, etc... Go figure.
But these bombs were always fun to throw onto the dinner table in intimate gatherings. My success rate was often contingent upon how much, or how little wine I had consumed during the meal. And to be fair, these were my friends for the most part, so they were quite used to my antics. Being an American gave me certain advantages and a wide birth in most situations. I was looked at both with amazement and great amusement.
Despite the light-hearted deliveries at these dinners, the core of these bombs were nonetheless. I still believe even today, so many years later, that the Painting medium can rarely tolerate, with much conviction, or success, an overload of too many concepts and ideas. Unlike Americans, the French, even though they are eloquent speakers, are just never comfortable expressing feelings about themselves (except in Art in all its forms of course, French cinema, theatre, books and poetry). Their passion hides behind their reserve. ‘La pudeur’ is a fine and sophisticated quality which the French possess in boatloads (ditto for the Japanese) unlike us Americans who barge into rooms uninvited and always say the wrong things at the wrong moments and then when leaving, they'll leave the lights on and the door ajar.
The French, whom we know and sometimes resent, have a profound passion for both ideals and ideas, and for that, we love them and fear them, but we also cherish them, all the more for it. Americans as the old cliche went, were people of action, doers not thinkers. But this is fallacy, for the French are great doers. It’s just that they are also poetic dreamers and this fact drives Americans crazy with envy.
One of my favourite Matisse portraits is this one he painted of his daughter Marguerite. This one is in Paris at the Musée Picasso, although I could swear that I’ve seen it at the Musée de Grenoble too. It is dated between 1906-7, and it is so simply done that it takes my breath away. Like the drawing, its colour harmony is simple, austere even, but for me, it houses just enough feeling to keep me transfixed. It’s created with an almost primitive form of expression as if it were painted on a farm somewhere in rural France by an amateur. This is perhaps why I like it so much; there is a complete lack of any pretension, technical, or otherwise in it. For me, when Matisse was at his best, it was always without pretence.
This loving father always painted his daughter with a ribbon or scarf around her neck to hide the scar from a tracheotomy she had endured early in childhood. Later on, Marguerite was in the Resistance during the war and was captured and tortured by the Gestapo. She was very lucky to have lived through it. And testament to her father’s adoration, we have many, many portraits of her today. As a painter, it speaks to how uncomplicated Painting can be when everything works in a simple way. I think that a primal image like this is born at an early stage in a painter’s life. It grows patiently within, almost unbeknownst to the painter himself. It has always been there, inchoate, and waiting for an occasion to appear. One cannot set out to make a picture like this. An image such as this seems to blossom naturally like an awkward young girl of 13, who, on the cusp of womanhood, becomes suddenly aware of her new form.
Of all his portraits of Marguerite, this is my preferred, and I love it like an old Zen Master who cherishes his favourite tea cup.
