Tag Archives: Vence chapel

A visit to Matisse’s ‘crowning achievement’

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For the conclusion of his 2010 BBC documentary, Modern Masters: Matisse, the British critic Alastair Sooke visited Matisse’s Vence Chapel in the south of France for the first time. In this segment, Sooke is overwhelmed by emotion, while he contemplates how the old, frail artist managed to have a final burst of creative energy at the very end of his life.

Designing the Chapel began in the late 1940s. Matisse, already in his late seventies, was recovering from surgery for intestinal cancer and had nearly died.  His nurse was a former model, Monique Bourgeois, now a novice Dominican nun, Sister Jacques Marie.

The project confused his friends like Picasso, who knew Matisse was an atheist. Yet Matisse called the Chapel his ‘crowning achievement.’

Matisse in bed working on Vence Chapel c. 1950

Matisse drawing a head for the decoration of Chapelle du Rosaire in Vence (The Matisse Chapel) in his studio/room in the Hotel Regina, in Nice-Cimiez, 1950. Photo by Walter Carone/Paris Match.

To celebrate the Museum of Modern Art’s exhibition, The Cut-Outs, which opened this month, the Café presents Sooke’s moving tour of the the Dominican Chapel of the Rosary in Vence, France.  Or as most of the world knows it — Matisse’s Chapel.

The Dove: Picasso and Matisse

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Picasso, Dove of Peace, 1949

Picasso, Dove of Peace, 1949

One of Picasso’s most famous and popular images is his lithograph of a dove as a symbol of peace.  But the dove was Matisse’s.  Literally.

Matisse and Picasso first met at the salon of the American patroness and writer Gertrude Stein’s in the early 1900s.  At the time they were rivals for both her affections and those of the modern artists of Paris.  Picasso’s followers once plastered the walls of Montmartre with anti-Matisse graffiti like “Matisse drives you mad!” and “Matisse does more harm than war!”  Matisse responded by using the term “Cubism” to mock the art of Picasso and his followers, a label that would, of course, stick.

As they grew older, they grew closer.  By the end of World War II, the old rivals had truly become great friends.  Matisse was now almost eighty, nearly bed-ridden and living in apartments in Vence, a town close to Nice.  His wife, Amelie, had recently divorced him; his children were grown with children of their own. His bedroom and studio were filled with birds and plants to keep him company and inspire him.

Matisse and Doves, Vence, 1944 Henri Cartier-Bresson

Matisse and Doves, Vence, 1944
Henri Cartier-Bresson

Picasso, along with his mistress, Francoise Gilot, was a regular visitor whenever they came south. They often exchanged paintings and even exhibited together.  Matisse kept a Picasso over his bedroom’s mantelpiece and Picasso displayed his Matisses in his studio. Picasso, who was eleven years younger, would bring recent paintings to Matisse for comments.  An engraver who did work for both of them said Picasso thought of Matisse “as an elder brother.”  Matisse thought of his rival as “the kid.” Their arguments continued, but more like sibling rivalry as they sat alone at the pinnacle of the art world.

When Matisse took on his last great commission —  the chapel of Vence — he emptied his living quarters so he could cover the walls with brightly colored cut-papers and not be distracted.  He bid a sad farewell to the plants that one can see in so many of his paintings. His exotic pigeons were sent to Picasso.

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