Far more interesting than Matisse’s physical life is the unfolding of his creative life. Here is Hilary Spurling writing (on page 192 of her highly recommended first biography) about Matisse, not yet aged thirty:
Matisse himself was reluctantly seduced that summer by a collection of exotic butterflies on display in the window of a postcard merchant opposite the Louvre on the rue de Rivoli. The butterflies, mounted behind glass on a plaster backing, included one with wings of the same blue as the sulphur flame with which he had first tried to create Mediterranean light as a schoolboy in his toy theatre in Bohain. Matisse gave a comical account of how his iron determination not to waste his money on anything so futile was undermined by this butterfly (“blue, but such a blue! It pierced my heart”) for which, in spite of his best efforts at resistance, he paid fifty francs he could ill afford, salving his conscience by including it among the presents he brought back from Paris for his wife.
What is my blue?