What I Want to Say

As a youth, Henri Matisse was enthralled by Giotto's religious frescoes in the Arena Chapel at Padua. But not until last year, at 78, did Matisse himself turn to religious art; then he began work on the little Dominican chapel that he had planned for the town of Vence, in the hills back of Nice. When he has finished, the result may be a 20th Century rival to Giotto's 14th Century work at Padua.

Since Matisse first conceived the chapel (TIME, Jan. 3), the ailing but happy old man has altered his plans for it again & again. The design for its eight narrow stained-glass windows of half-abstract leaves and cactuses done in blue, yellow and green was worked out by pinning colored scraps to long rolls of brown wrapping paper tacked to the walls of his hotel suite at Nice. The interior design was also the work of months; as now planned, its white marble floor and black-line Matisse murals drawn on white tiles will glow with colored light from the Matisse windows. "You understand?" he said to a TIME reporter at Nice last week, "the colors do not exist, yet they exist."

Lit by a completed section of stained glass, Matisse's working model of the chapel did actually seem filled with fiery light. Had he known it would come out so well? "No," said Matisse, "I didn't--I'm not a bluffer. Emotions within us lead us to create. The artist works and arrives at a moment when there is an explosion ... I can't say why in this case the colors happened to be so subtle and harmonious."

Because he is not well enough to climb ladders, Matisse uses a 4-ft. brush for his murals, which are to represent the Virgin and Child, St. Dominic and the Stations of the Cross. Like the windows, the murals please him enormously. "All my life," he exults, "I've studied the works of other artists--Raphael, Griinewald, Memling--but do you know what enabled me to free myself from their influence, to satisfy myself with my work? Operational shock! "In 1941 I had a serious operation and almost died. But I survived, and I thought, 'Look, Matisse isn't dead!' With this extra life I could do as I pleased. I could create what I'd been struggling all these years to create. My work may seem more joyful than in the past but it's exactly what I was trying to do 50 years ago. It has taken me that long to arrive at the stage where I can say what I want to say."

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