I was instantly converted to the gospel of Matisse when I saw his jazz paintings in the Hermitage in St. Petersburg. Partly it’s their giant scale, partly it’s the way he maintained the spirit of play in whatever he happened to be doing, even if what he happened to be doing was 12 feet high.

Prestel has republished Matisse’s Jazz, a related project that is essentially a group of 20 plates made up of paper cutouts, originally published in 1947. Interspersed amongst the joyous colors are sections of prose in Matisse’s own handwriting — sometimes gnomic and sometimes profound musings on the nature of art and painting:

“While strolling in the garden, I pick one flower after another and, gathering them in no specific order, carry them in the fold of my arm. … After arranging them as I think best, what a disappointment: their charm has been lost in the arranging. What happened? … Renoir once said to me, ‘Once I have arranged a bouquet for the purpose of painting it, I stop in front of the side I did not plan.’”

An extremely beautiful book that functions as both a testament to and a testament of a great artist.

Equally beautiful, but less moving, is John Singer Sargent: Venetian Figures and Landscapes 1898-1913 (Yale) only because the book, volume six in his catalogue raisonné, is almost all watercolors, which don’t have the impact of Sargent’s oils. Nevertheless, as a document of Sargent’s passion for Venice, it’s invaluable, and editors Richard Ormond and Elaine Kilmurray include recent shots of the actual buildings Sargent painted, angled similarly to the paintings, so you can almost observe the artist’s eye at work.

Mike Browning’s Word of the Week…

obacerate: to stop your own or someone else’s mouth.