Henri Matisse is one of the masters of twentieth-century art and a
household word to millions of people who find joy and meaning in
his light-filled, colorful images--yet, despite all the books
devoted to his work, the man himself has remained a mystery. Now,
in the hands of the superb biographer Hilary Spurling, the unknown
Matisse becomes visible at last.
Matisse was born into a family of shopkeepers in 1869, in a gloomy
textile town in the north of France. His environment was brightened
only by the sumptuous fabrics produced by the local
weavers--magnificent brocades and silks that offered Matisse his
first vision of light and color, and which later became a familiar
motif in his paintings. He did not find his artistic vocation until
after leaving school, when he struggled for years with his father,
who wanted him to take over the family seed-store. Escaping to
Paris, where he was scorned by the French art establishment,
Matisse lived for fifteen years in great poverty--an ordeal he
shared with other young artists and with Camille Joblaud, the
mother of his daughter, Marguerite.
But Matisse never gave up. Painting by painting, he struggled
toward the revelation that beckoned to him, learning about color,
light, and form from such mentors as Signac, Pissarro, and the
Australian painter John Peter Russell, who ruled his own art colony
on an island off the coast of Brittany. In 1898, after a dramatic
parting from Joblaud, Matisse met and married Amelie Parayre, who
became his staunchest ally. She and their two sons, Jean and
Pierre, formed with Marguerite his indispensable intimate circle.
From the first day of his wedding trip to Ajaccio in Corsica,
Matisse realized that he had found his spiritual home: the south,
with its heat, color, and clear light. For years he worked
unceasingly toward the style by which we know him now. But in 1902,
just as he was on the point of achieving his goals as a painter, he
suddenly left Paris with his family for the hometown he detested,
and returned to the somber, muted palette he had so recently
discarded.
Why did this happen? Art historians have called this regression
Matisse's "dark period," but none have ever guessed the reason for
it. What Hilary Spurling has uncovered is nothing less than the
involvement of Matisse's in-laws, the Parayres, in a monumental
scandal which threatened to topple the banking system and
government of France. The authorities, reeling from the divisive
Dreyfus case, smoothed over the so-called Humbert Affair, and did
it so well that the story of this twenty-year scam--and the
humiliation and ruin its climax brought down on the unsuspecting
Matisse and his family--have been erased from memory until now.
It took many months for Matisse to come to terms with this
disgrace, and nearly as long to return to the bold course he had
been pursuing before the interruption. What lay ahead were the
summers in St-Tropez and Collioure; the outpouring of "Fauve"
paintings; Matisse's experiments with sculpture; and the beginnings
of acceptance by dealers and collectors, which, by 1908, put his
life on a more secure footing.
Hilary Spurling's discovery of the Humbert Affair and its effects
on Matisse's health and work is an extraordinary revelation, but it
is only one aspect of her achievement. She enters into Matisse's
struggle for expression and his tenacious progress from his
northern origins to the life-giving light of the Mediterranean with
rare sensitivity. She brings to her task an astonishing breadth of
knowledge about his family, about fin-de-siecle Paris, the
conventional Salon painters who shut their doors on him, his
artistic comrades, his early patrons, and his incipient rivalry
with Picasso.
In Hilary Spurling, Matisse has found a biographer with a
detective's ability to unearth crucial facts, the narrative power
of a novelist, and profound empathy for her subject.
"From the Hardcover edition."