His eyes were bright blue and he had a remarkably fresh voice. He was always carefully dressed-raw-silk jackets and good linen. He wasn’t at all a dandy but there was a sense of quality. When I saw him, he was seemingly fully dressed, sitting up in bed!
He was more impressive than appealing. There was no effort at charm. He was an Olympian figure-you don’t expect an Olympian figure to have charm. You also felt that irritation could be quite near the surface. There were no jokes, no small talk. But I do remember how youthful he sounded when speaking about things that interested him, his excitement about his Vence chapel. He gave me the world premiere of the chapel-showing me the cutout designs for the stainedglass windows and the ceramic murals,
What one might not fully realize from looking at Matisse’s work was what agony it cost him. It was not at all a case of someone tossing off joyful, loving, singing, easy work. What looked utterly spontaneous was the result of extraordinary discipline. He would draw the same thing over and over and over again. He used the most terrible language while working, hissing and cursing in front of his models.
I didn’t know him in the ’20s, the Nice years, when people were saying, oh, that’s too easy, too decorative. But it was absolutely untrue that he was relaxing in the sun and having lovely women lounging all about.
In 1947 and ‘48, his studio was his living room. He did a series of paintings that showed the interior. The room was not red at all, but in one painting, it would be bright red, in another dark blue, to correspond to his emotions at the moment.
His paintings seem so hedonistic but Matisse lived a very careful, frugal life. He was careful in every way, in what he ate, what he drank. He was from a sober, close-knit north-of-France family, serious, hardworking, with little financial ease. His father had a small grain business. He never believed Henri could make it as a painter and sent along a sack of rice once a month to make sure his son and his family had something to eat. According to Pierre, in much the way the old grain merchant worried about Henri, Matisse would have terrible insomnia worrying about the future of his family and his own work.
He would get up early in the morning to ride. His sons had to alternate mornings going riding with Papa, to keep him company. They hated it. Pierre made him sound immensely distant, a stern disciplinarian. But I’ve known from certain sources that Henri was most devoted and concerned. It was just not his way to show spontaneity and affection.
Like most great artists, he was totally self-centered. Everything was for Papa. The house was run for him. When he broke up with his wife in 1939 because of Madame Lydia [Lydia Delectorskaya, his wife’s hired companion, later his model and mistress], it was Mme. Matisse who walked out. Matisse was indignant that his life should be disturbed in this way. He thought, how could she do that to me?
Mme. Matisse bad been an invalid, with a back condition that made her just lie on the sofa, unable to fend for herself. It was probably psychosomatic, intense frustration. In the painting “The Conversation” [circa 1910], you feel there’s real trouble, the impossibility of the situation. They had the children and his career is what counted. No wonder Mme. Matisse had a backache all the time! Lydia came to be her companion [in 1934]. Then the whole situation blew up, and Mme. Matisse was miraculously able to get up from her sickbed. She stood up on her feet and screamed at him. From then on she was cured!
Lydia was not really Matisse’s type. He had usually painted dark, southern girls and she was very blond, blue-eyed, Russian. She became an absolute obsession, with considerable influence over him. Lydia became an indispensable part of his life. She is a wonderful person and has always been absolutely selfless. Unlike the usual story of artists’ mistresses, the minute he died she got out of the house. She gave the few paintings he’d given her to the Russian museums and wouldn’t speak of him to the press.
Matisse’s obsession with Lydia wasn’t typical of him. Maybe there were, but I don’t know of any other romantic, sexual obsessions. It’s so easy to say that he had affairs with his models; I think he savored them by looking at them. He loved women, yes, absolutely. But I don’t think at all that he just dashed from flower to flower like Picasso did. He would become obsessed by a model in that he liked to paint the same people-and the same objects–over and over again.
