Thursday, September 26th - Day 16 Matisse Museum, Nice
It poured with rain all day! We decided to pick out an inside activity and drove to Nice to see the Matisse Museum on Cimiez Hill. It was pure luck that we found a parking spot at the Cimiez Monastery (built in the 9th century - the cemetery is where Matisse is buried).
We walked through the vast olive gardens (some trees are over 100 years old) to the museum which is housed in a 17th-century villa with a low-level modern addition. Interestingly, surrounding the museum are ancient ruins from the Roman city of Cemenelum, a significant archaeological site. including ruins of an amphitheater, baths, and temple.
We discovered that everyone had the same idea on a rainy day. The line for tickets took an hour to get to the front door.
Once inside we discovered that the exhibit was of Matisse and Miro - colleagues who admired each other's work and exchanged ideas and art for many years. You can see the influence each had on the other's work. They both used different media for their art including architecture, sculpture, textiles, and book illustrations.
Deb's takeaways.
I was surprised at the speed with which Matisse's early style changed within a year or two while he was at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts. (Start upper left - go clockwise)
Later - a much simplified form!
One of Miro's paintings immediately evoked the style of Martha Visser t-Hooft, my children's Great-Grannie V, a painter.
At one point in his life Matisse stopped painting and went to Tahiti where he developed new ideas about colour and style. Wow, you could see the impact.
"According to Matisse, the main aim of his work was to allow a possible space for the mind...just like a musical cord." Thought about it as I looked at these paintings. The blue color of the clouds in the Miro painting made it my favorite. In the Matisse - Looking out the window and imagining what's out there.
Miro - Head of a Catalan Peasant 1925
Matisse - View of Notre Dame 1914
Back to the car through the olive garden. Still raining!
