When Henri Matisse (1869-1954) was forced to give up painting completely in the mid-1940s due to a serious illness, he began to work with painted paper and a pair of scissors, cutting out forms at will. These works represented a revolution in modern art. Matisse - a remarkable man who was scarcely able to leave his bed and already considered lost to the world of painting - had thus found a way of outsmarting fate and creating a perfect synthesis of...

"A series of linked essays that considers different aspects of Matisse's life and work, revealing how the artist worked against many of the main tenets of modernism"--Provided by publisher.