Polynesia, the Sea

White shapes drift across a checkerboard of blue and green.
They resemble seaweed, coral, fish, and even birds soaring through the sky.

Painted with an easel set up on a tropical shore—
at first glance, one might easily imagine so.

In truth, however, this work was not created in Tahiti.
It was made indoors in the South of France, far from the South Pacific.
Moreover, sixteen long years had passed since he had last gazed upon that ocean.

In 1930,
having turned sixty, Matisse was searching for a breakthrough in his artistic expression.
He journeyed to Tahiti, immersing himself in the crystalline waters
and losing himself in the colors of the coral reefs.

Yet while there, he made scarcely any sketches.
Though he carried an expensive camera, he deliberately chose not to take photographs.

"Taking a photograph only results in an impoverished image."
Fearing that his profound impressions would be compromised,
he simply absorbed everything with his eyes, like a sponge soaking up water.

Eleven years later, in 1941,
Matisse underwent major surgery for duodenal cancer in Lyon.
Miraculously, his life was saved,
yet he was forced to endure a prolonged convalescence confined to a wheelchair and bed.
The physically demanding process of oil painting was no longer possible.

In 1946, at his studio, Villa Le Rêve, in Vence in the South of France,
he received a commission from the Gobelins Manufactory to design tapestries.
It was then that he proposed a novel technique.

His assistants applied flat coats of gouache onto letter paper or wrapping paper.
Matisse then cut directly into these colored sheets using large shears.

Just as a sculptor carves directly into stone, he carved into pure color with his scissors.
The cut-out motifs were pinned to the studio walls.
Bathed in the ambient light of the room, he arranged and rearranged them endlessly to compose the image.
After more than fifteen years, the miracle of the Pacific was reborn as a vivid memory.