The Snail

Constraint is the mother of creativity. Plagued by arthritis and failing health that rendered him unable to paint, Matisse could not subdue his creative spirit. From his sickbed or wheelchair, he instructed assistants to paint large sheets of paper with gouache, which he would then cut with scissors or rip with his hands and place directly onto a surface below him. A master of colour throughout his life, in this rudimentary technique the ailing artist found new avenues open to him. It "allows me to draw in the colour", he said, "It is a simplification for me. Instead of drawing the outline and putting the colour inside it - the one modifying the other - I draw straight into the colour". The simplification of process mirrors the simplification of subject; by prioritising colour over line, Matisse reduced the snail into its essential form of a spiral. He does not ask us to consider the individual subject, but to think of how we make up the world, how little we need to understand so much. The work is so perfectly balanced that its at first rudimentary appearance gives way to profound effect, the harmony of colours and shape touching something almost primal within us.