Toward the end of his monumental career as a painter, sculptor, and lithographer, an elderly, sickly Matisse was unable to stand and use a paintbrush for long. In this late phase of his life\u2014he was almost 80 years of age\u2014he developed the technique of \u201ccarving into color,\u201d creating bright, bold paper cut-outs. Though dismissed by some contemporary critics as the folly of a senile old man, these gouaches decoup\u00e9es (gouache cut-outs) in fact represented a revolution in modern art, a whole new medium that reimagined the age-old conflict between color and line.<\/p>\n
This fresh edition of the first volume of our original award-winning XXL book provides a thorough historical context to Matisse\u2019s cut-outs, tracing their roots in his 1930 trip to Tahiti, through to his final years in Nice. It includes many photos of Matisse, some rare images, by Henri Cartier-Bresson and the filmmaker F. W. Murnau and text from Matisse, publisher E. T\u00e9riade, the poets Louis Aragon, Henri Michaux, and Pierre Reverdy, and Matisse\u2019s son-in-law Georges Duthuit.<\/p>\n
In their deceptive simplicity, the cut-outs achieved both a sculptural quality and an early minimalist abstraction which would profoundly influence generations of artists to come. Exuberant, multi-hued, and often grand in scale, these works are true pillars of 20th-century art, and as bold and innovative to behold today as they were in Matisse\u2019s lifetime.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Toward the end of his monumental career as a painter, sculptor, and lithographer, an elderly, sickly Matisse was unable to stand and use a paintbrush for long. In this late phase of his life\u2014he was almost 80 years of age\u2014he developed the technique of \u201ccarving into color,\u201d creating bright, bold paper cut-outs. Though dismissed by…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":36634,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":[],"product_brand":[],"product_cat":[4522],"product_tag":[9083,2767,1702,11509,154,524,11453,981],"class_list":{"0":"post-36645","1":"product","2":"type-product","3":"status-publish","4":"has-post-thumbnail","6":"product_cat-art-en","7":"product_tag-art-en","8":"product_tag-art-history","9":"product_tag-artists","10":"product_tag-lithography-en","11":"product_tag-monographs","12":"product_tag-painting-en","13":"product_tag-paper-en","14":"product_tag-sculpture-en","15":"pa_author_att-gilles-neret-en","16":"pa_author_att-xavier-gilles-neret-en","17":"pa_cover-hardcover","18":"pa_format-17-x-24-cm-en","19":"pa_isbn-9783836567190-en","20":"pa_language-eng","21":"pa_pages-412-en","22":"pa_published-2018-12-27-en","23":"pa_publisher-taschen-en-en","25":"first","26":"outofstock","27":"sold-individually","28":"shipping-taxable","29":"purchasable","30":"product-type-simple"},"yoast_head":"\n