I took an art criticism class in my first semester in college that introduced me to John Berger and Matisse’s Woman with a Hat. I don’t remember anything from my essay, aside spending a considerable amount of time at the gallery at the SF MOMA and noticing the color imperfections on different reproductions of this image.
Those afternoons at the gallery are among the few warm memories of a tumultuous year.
As for this little book, I vaguely recollect picking it up in Houston, without actually reading it. So about almost-quarter century after my introduction to Matisse, I finally read something about the man.
The book is fine, maybe a little small, but a succinct overview of the final period in his life. The writing is straightforward, but not simplistic. Now that I live in Vegas, the home of zero institutions of high art, I can’t be picky about reproduction colors, but I’ll attest that the printing is bright and vibrant.
It was a strange experience to read the last chapter of an artist’s life with no knowledge of him outside of staring at a single piece that he painted at the start of his career.
If I were to pursue it further, I’d need to pick up a good biography (which I most likely won’t do), but I almost certainly will purchase his own monograph Jazz which collected many of his cutouts.
I generally prefer artist monographs over publisher collections, since those books are usually a journey, not merely a collection of highlights.
However, highlights are famous for a reason, and I will be ever grateful for this little collection because it showed me this melancholy masterpiece. The Sorrow of the King.
