Just click on the image for all you need to know about 'The Snail'
This is my favourite piece by Matisse -
doesn't look much like a snail -
more of a cubist essence of snail?!
Matisse had been ill, he was bed ridden and he asked for paper, painted with gouache, and scissors and did this - a miracle - pure genius!
My second favourite piece, also a paper cut composition...
a couple of years ago we went to Amsterdam and I went to the Stedelijk museum - a weird building, the extension looks like a bath tub - full of wonderful, wonderful art.
I was wandering around and turned a corner and there it was - in a room of it's own - all 337 by 768.5 centimetres of it... It definitely made an impression!
La perruche et la sirene - the parakeet and the mermaid - I fell in love with it, I walked slowly, ever so slowly up to it, along in front of it ...centre to left then right and back to the centre and then started walking backwards and wondered if Matisse ever saw it like I was seeing it, and how proud he must have felt to have created something that gives so much joy.