Article: Books: Still life with jeers and catcalls Henri Matisse was a maligned and mocked figure in his lifetime, but this biography makes magnificent amends. By Mark Bostridge; Matisse the Master: the conquest of colour 1909-1954 By Hilary Spurling HAMISH HAMILTON pounds 25 pounds 22.50 (P&P FREE) 08700 798 897

In Paris, during the autumn of 1910, Henri Matisse exhibited his gigantic mural Dance and Music publicly for the first time. This pair of enormous panels, each 8ft 6in high by 12ft long, presents two sets of figures: in Dance, bodies writhe in delirious abandon while, contrastingly, in Music, the violinist, flautist and singers appear almost engrossed in their own stillness.

With the full force of his unflagging - and unforgiving - self- discipline, Matisse, who had played the violin as a boy, aimed at "an art of balance, purity and tranquillity, free from any nagging or disturbing element", an art, he said, which could offer his contemporaries an antidote to the stresses of the workplace ...

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