Against Autobiography: Henri Matisse's Essays on Art

Abstract

This article examines Henri Matisse's essays on art as a form of life writing that eschews autobiography. It is argued that in his early essays Matisse used the written word to communicate an image of the self that was devoid of personal detail and to counter biographical approaches to the interpretation of artworks that had reached a height in French critical literature about the arts during the nineteenth century. Illustrating this point, a parallel is drawn between concepts of the self expressed in Matisse's writings and Marcel Proust's Against Sainte-Beuve. The article traces Matisse's growing suspicion of the written word and examines his identification of the transcendental ego as the organizing principle of the artwork. Finally, a thematic continuity is proposed between Matisse's ‘Notes of a Painter’ (1908) and his artist's book Jazz (1947). Jazz is interpreted as the culmination of a form of life writing begun in the earlier essay in its use of handwriting to serve two contrasting purposes: the narration of an empirical (autobiographical) self and the staging of a transcendental (artistic) self. Writing is cast as a form of physical making and becomes simultaneously a demonstration of, and reflection on, the unique ‘handwork’ (‘signe-main’) of the artist.

Keywords:

• artist's book
• Matisse
• Proust
• Sainte-Beuve

Notes

[1] Unless otherwise noted, translations are by the author.

[2] Flam has drawn a similar distinction, but goes on to argue that Matisse's art ‘is more directly related to the events in his life than one might suppose’ (Matisse and Picasso viii). This article is indebted to the pioneering work undertaken by Flam on Matisse's writings and their importance for a broader understanding of the artist's œuvre.

[3] For details of the work submitted to these exhibitions see Elderfield 133–6.

[4] See also Wright's discussion of the role played by Matisse's writings in countering early critics of his works and, in particular, in identifying the placement of his works in relation to pictorial traditions (19–21).

[5] Flam also explores the idea that Matisse's writings fill a gap in his artworks, but from a different perspective. Taking a psychoanalytic approach to this issue, Flam suggests that Matisse's use of language ‘deflects’ the viewer from salient details of the paintings, thereby protecting the painter from inadvertent ‘psychological self-exposure’ (on Art 8–10). For Flam, language thus becomes the medium by which the artist guides his viewer away from psychological conjectures about the artist based on the content of the artworks.

[6] On the promotion of a self-image that differed markedly from public perceptions of Picasso see also Elderfield 19–22.

[7] In contrast to Bock-Weiss, I interpret Matisse's comments to the interviewer Sarah MacChesney in 1913 as being heavily ironic. In a statement made to coincide with exhibition of his works as part of the Armory Show in New York, Matisse asked to be described ‘an ordinary man […] a devoted father and husband’ (‘un homme normal […] un père et un mari dévoués’) (Écrits 53, note 2; Bock-Weiss, 23).

[8] See also David Carrier's discussion of the depiction of acts of making in Matisse and Proust (25–6).

[9] Matisse ventured into the realm of art instruction in the first decade of the twentieth century, and some of his commentaries on students' works survive in the form of Sarah Stein's notes of what we would now think of as a typical art school ‘crit’. For further detail see Spurling, 166–9, 181–2, 199–200; ‘Notes de Sarah Stein’ (1908) in Matisse, Écrits 64–74.

[10] See, for example, André Rouveyre's description of Matisse's transcriptions of poems by Charles d'Orléans in the artist's book Poèmes de Charles d'Orléans as a form of ‘drawn writing’ (‘écrit dessiné’) (qtd in Finsen 205).

[11] Page references for Jazz are to the original page numbers of this artist's book. For the purpose of this article, I focus primarily on the handwriting rather than the imagery of this work.