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| An Artistic Exchange |
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KERA: During World War II, Picasso sends Matisse an unusual gift: a dramatic, tortured portrait of Picasso’s lover at the time, Dora Maar. When Matisse offers Picasso a painting in return, Picasso chooses a painting that’s outrageously pretty, even sweet by comparison. What does this exchange tell us about the two artists? Yve-Alain Bois: I think they are both interested-- and know that the other is interested --in what the other is unable to do. Picasso sends Matisse something that he knows is very, very different from what Matisse is doing. And it's a very powerful portrait. And Picasso chooses, because Matisse gives Picasso a choice, Seated Young Woman in a Persian Dress, which in its innocence is completely removed from what Picasso would do. I think one of the things that fascinated Picasso in this painting was the way the color breathes. The white of the canvas shows through the brushstroke. And also the relationship between purple and green-- FranÁoise Gilot wrote that Picasso was fascinated at the time by the purple-green juxtaposition. Picasso’s Still Life with Steer’s Skull uses the same color relationship. Matisse and Picasso were each interested in the things the other was best at, what they couldn’t do as well. And it's very interesting that Matisse goes back to the Portrait of Dora Maar later in his life, after the war, when he is doing The Stations of the Cross for the Vence Chapel. Now this is something that Matisse doesn't know how to do, to paint pain, horror. He's not good at it. Every time he tried to represent a scene of violence, he was not very convincing. It wasn’t his mode. And so each artist’s conception of beholding is different; what they want to do with art is different. They don't quite know themselves at that time. It will take a long time for each of them to know why they differ so much, why they can't do what the other is doing. They were always very intrigued, one by the other, and there are many witnesses who heard Matisse or Picasso say, “How does he do that?” .
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