Matisse: In Search of True Painting

Last week Billy and I went to the Met to see the Matisse show. In case you don't know, I studied art in college. Not very well, or very productively. But it does mean I like to look at art. This show was really an interesting one because they focused on the way that Matisse often did several paintings of the same or similar compositions. He didn't do the paintings as studies, preparing for a final version. Rather he seemed to be interested in the process of painting. He created several finished paintings on very similar subjects. I recommend the show. It says something interesting about artistic vision, doesn't it? The artist is interested in exploring different ways of looking at the same thing.

There were two other themes (or perhaps they are related) that I was intrigued by as well. One was paintings of views out the window. Matisse seemed interested in examining the differences of interior and exterior, and how the window literally connects them. The paintings were all looking out of windows, none (in the show at least) looking in. And then there were the goldfish. I have always liked the Matisse paintings that have goldfish in them. I am probably just a sucker for the orange paint, which contrasts so nicely with the Matisse blues. The gallery wall told us something about the interior/exterior tension being present in the goldfish as well. I think they mean that the goldfish bowls are an interior space making the rest of the room an exterior.

But why am I talking about Matisse? Well, I do like him. But I am talking about him because of the idea of process. On Sunday we had a Bible Study about Genesis chapters 1 & 2 talking about how there can exist two different stories of creation right next to each other, and what it might suggest to us about the nature of our relationships to God. And what questions each of the stories might have been trying to answer. We were also curious about why later writers would have left in previous stories. And after seeing Matisse, it somehow makes more sense to me. They were interested in exploring different ways of looking at the same thing. And the Bible as an example of process makes a lot of sense to me. After all generation after generation read it, wrote it (in scribal schools), and some added to it. I wonder what it would be like if we had an open canon now? Would we still be adding to the New Testament?