Matisse cuts it fine

By Olivia Weinberg

Light, immediate, pure—just don’t call them naive. Matisse’s cut-outs, or gouaches découpés as they are more seductively known, may look simple to an untrained eye, with their loose, irregular shapes, but they have a sculptural precision. If the pinks, yellows and greens are garish rather than pretty, they sit in harmony and throb with energy. Seen en masse for the first time, they should take us inside the mind of a great artist who had found a new way to turn the depredations of old age to advantage.

It was during the war that Matisse, in his 70s and besieged by illness and immobility, began to play with scissors. From his bed or wheelchair, he cut confident, unpredictable silhouettes from stashes of paper, prepared by his doting assistants. Pinned to the walls, each shape was moved around like a jigsaw slowly coming to life—until Matisse said stop. His bedroom morphed into a studio, and the studio became a whirlpool of intense experimentation.