What Henri Matisse Can Teach Us During These Difficult Times
In October 2016 my mother passed away from a sudden recurrence of breast cancer. She was only 57 and still had much more to accomplish with her life. When it happened I was devastated and lost.
When I was accepted to the Alba Music Festival Composition Program in early 2018, I concluded it was time to address the emotions I had over my Mom’s passing. The emptiness. The loss. The heartbreak. Those were all still real feelings for me well over a year later, but I had a problem. I could not make those emotions manifest into a musical form. I couldn’t understand why, and grew more and more frustrated.
A desultory time indeed, I was looking anywhere to find a direction for this piece, even planning on dropping my original intent to address my feelings of loss.
The Dance (1910)
Often finding inspiration from art, I looked through some of my favorite painters from the 20th century. Picasso, Chagall, and Matisse. Reveling in the colors and different imaginations these masters had. I was captured by one painting. The Dance by Henri Matisse. I was familiar with this work, but I was really struck by it at that very moment. The colors. The nature of the subject. The somewhat primeval use of line and brush stroke. I was like Cameron from Ferris Beuler’s Day Off staring off into the Seurat painting!
The painting drove me to do some deep research on Matisse’s life, and what I learned not only gave me direction for that project, but started me on a journey of exploring my own grief and finding closure.
Matisse hard at work with his assistant (Annelies Nelk?) c. 1953
Matisse, although a successful artist even in his lifetime, experienced many periods of hardship. The last decade of his life was exceptionally difficult. He was diagnosed with intestinal cancer and the surgery to remove it, although successful, left him chair and bed bound for the remainder of his life.
Tasks so familiar to him like using a paintbrush became taxing on his energy. One could understand if Matisse became indifferent, angry, or callous toward the world and expressing such emotions with his art. However, when we observe his art during this time we do not see such emotions. Instead, we see him take on a new style using scissors to make collages from his bed, and he chooses bright, vibrantly colored paper to do so. The subjects of these collages? Energetic, acrobatic figures. Celebrations of life.
Chapelle du Rosaire, Vence, France
Why such joyous subjects? Was Matisse in denial of the pain he was experiencing? Even in the last years of his life as he was designing The Chapelle du Rosarie in Vence, France, he was still very limited in his mobility and he was aware of his own mortality. Yet, this chapel is filled with light. The beautiful stained glass palm fronds flood the space, reflect off the polished marble floor, and fill the otherwise pure white room with beautiful color.
What Matisse was trying to embrace, and consequently remind all of us of, were the things that we readily forget in times of despair. Joy. Beauty. Love. Holding fast to these things tightly and embracing optimism can help realign our values and find strength within ourselves when we can otherwise become overwhelmed with the deluge of pain, suffering, and corruption we so often see in the world everyday.
This way of approaching creativity resonated deeply with me. Using this philosophy I was able to not just finish my piece “Dance” soon after, but also find the closure needed regarding the loss of my mother. Yes, losing her was truly heartbreaking, but there were so many wonderful qualities about her that she left behind as a legacy and that’s worth embracing instead of concluding they are lost forever.
Kristin and I outside The Chapelle du Rosaire, June 2018. We were unable to take photos inside.
After “Dance” premiered in Alba, my partner and I were close enough to the French border to take a side trip to Vence to visit the Chapelle du Rosaire that Matisse worked so hard on at the end of his life. To sit in the pews and bask in all the color and beauty was a stunning experience for me. It was so important to learn about this genius, make a piece based on his own ideals, and to conclude this journey of grief and closure by appreciating his masterpiece in person. The experience made me affirm that I wanted the same ideals for my own work.
What I am trying to explain is this: of course we are all aware of what is going on right now around the world. People are very sick. Medical workers are overwhelmed. Businesses are going under. Unemployment is skyrocketing. We really do not know when this will all be over. It truly is a difficult time.
“Trouver la joie dans le ciel, dans les arbres, dan les fleurs. Il y a des fleurs partout pour qui veut bien les voir.”
Henri Matisse
What we can do now, especially if we are on the front lines of this crisis, is remind ourselves of the things that are important in our lives that bring us joy, beauty, and love. Something as simple as a gentle breeze filling your home with the fragrances of beautiful flowers outside. A pleasant phone call with a loved one. A lovely and stirring piece of music. A simple and nutritious homemade dinner shared with people we care about. We embrace these things to find peace and build strength within ourselves for when times become most difficult.
“To find joy in the sky, the trees, the flowers. There are always flowers for those who want to see them.”
-Henri Matisse