In Matisse the Master, biographer Hilary Spurling writes that Matisse’s friend Henri Cross
was one of the few – possibly the only person apart from Amélie Matisse [Matisse's wife] – who fully understood the state of barely suppressed panic that underlay Matisse’s own unremitting experimentation.
How exciting to read about artistic courage, to find confirmation that such courage is as worthy as, or perhaps worthier than, the physical courage most people value!