now reading again

Hilary Spurling’s two-volume Matisse biography, just because one of the Irish contingent mentioned it in Venice. I received it as a Christmas gift in 2005, dug in right away, greatly enjoyed it, but then was inexplicably sidetracked by other things and forgot to finish the book. I was going to start it again after attending the very nice Matisse show in Chicago a year ago, but was again sidetracked. This time I won’t let myself get sidetracked; this will be a good summer reading project during writing breaks.

Matisse was not an immediate favorite of mine. The gateway into his work was opened for me by Picasso’s admiration for him (and now Picasso is irrelevant to the process; I simply like Matisse now). Matisse is a fascinating figure in his own right, on top of which he gives us a “lite” version of Van Gogh’s late bloomer story, but carrying it out over a much longer stretch of time, and with a certain basic sanity than Van Gogh obviously lacked, despite the brilliance evident in his amazing letters.