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Article: AN ARTISTIC MASTER WITH AN IRON WILL TO MATCH RECOUNTING MATISSE'S HUNT FOR GREATNESS
- Article from:
- The Boston Globe (Boston, MA)
- Article date:
- October 16, 2005
- Author:
CopyrightCopyright 2005 The Boston Globe. Provided by ProQuest LLC. (Hide copyright information)
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Hilary Spurling considers Matisse the greatest artist of the 20th
century. The story she tells in her biography, now completed in its
second volume, is of his heroic, obsessive dedication to art. "The
effort took everything he had to give."
Matisse could not have done it without a wife who was willing to
endure a self-sacrificing life of poverty. "Mademoiselle, I love you
dearly, but I shall always love painting more," he told his wife-to-
be, who accepted this condition instantly. Spurling says, "He gave
her the cause she had been waiting for from girlhood."
Everything in their household revolved around painting; his art
drew everyone around him into it. "Matisse's canvases represented ...