HENRI MATISSE CUT OUTS (TASCHEN 40TH)

Toward the end of his monumental career as a painter, sculptor, and lithographer, Matisse was unable to stand and use a paintbrush for long. In this late phase of his life, he developed the technique of 'carving into colour', creating bright, bold paper cut-outs. Though dismissed by some contemporary critics as the folly of a senile old man, these gouaches decoupées in fact represented a revolution in modern art, a whole new medium that reimagined the age-old conflict between colour and line.