Matisse: In Search of True Painting explores Henri Matisse's
painting process by showcasing 49 vibrantly colored canvases
that demonstrate the artist's tendency to use his completed
canvases as tools, repeating compositions in order to compare
effects, gauge his progress, and, as he put it, "push further
and deeper into true painting." (December 4, 2012-March 17,
2013). Where: The Metropolitan Museum of Art Fifth Avenue at
82nd Street Matisse copied old master paintings as part of his
academic training. He found much to admire on the walls of the
Musée du Louvre yet was also receptive to the contemporary
pictures he encountered in Parisian galleries. He was
particularly intrigued by the work of Paul Cézanne (1839-1906)
and Paul Signac (1863-1935). In 1904-1905 Matisse arranged a
still life and painted it in two different ways. The green and
violet clusters of diagonally placed brushstrokes in Still Life
with Purro I (1904, private collection) evoke passages in
certain of Cézanne's paintings, while the vivid c