Matisse

Yesterday, in some part of the DT on which I cannot now lay my hands, we had a piece about the picture illustrated left. We had the illustrious director of the Tate telling us all about these late masterpieces, this one being produced a year or so before the artist's death at the grand old age of 85 or thereabouts. So, according to a spokesperson for the Tate, 'the cut outs were the final brilliant chapter in Matisse's career and reflected his renewed commitment to form and colour'.

I know very little of Matisse, although I dare say I would recognise a fair number of his paintings as being by him, but I do wonder about whether it is proper to exhibit the bits and bobs of his dotage in this way. Which is what this is for me: it might be the work of someone who had been a master but it is not a masterpiece; for me it is not very much at all. More or less content free, reflecting the state of mind in which it was produced. I wonder if the spokesperson would gush as much about the products of Matisse's first infancy as she does about his second? Perhaps along the lines of 'the finger paintings were the first brilliant stirrings of Matisse's career and reflected his emerging commitment to form and colour'.

There is a tension between our interest in a famous person, an interest which goes beyond whatever it is that made him famous, an interest which I believe is legitimate, one cannot be both famous and private, and the right of any person for a bit of respect and privacy. Is it right to hold up the bits and bobs of my dotage to public gaze and scrutiny? Does a famous person have the right to draw a line and to say that he is now retired and that he and his doings are no longer in the public domain? Do the nearest and dearest of such a person have a right or duty to retire him, on his behalf as it were, when he is no longer capable himself, rather as they do in matters financial? Should we, the public, show a bit of restraint and decency, whatever the famous person or his representatives might think?

In any event, I remain puzzled at the attitude of the art establishment and of art collectors to this sort of stuff. When will the emperor's new clothes cease to rule over us?

PS: BH tells me that the Anglo-Saxon fondness for paired adjectives like 'restraint and decency' is a product of the Viking incursions of the 9th century. Vikings were very fond indeed of locutions of this form, unlike the Romans who were not. Perhaps it is all to do with Latin being a declined language and the Romans not needing to bother too much about the order in which words came out.