Sidney and Lois Eskenazi Museum of Art

About this Work

When Henri Matisse was asked by the publisher Albert Skira to create twenty-nine images for a limited-edition book of Stéphane Mallarmé's poetry, the idea was "to create an 'equivalent' not only to the typography of the page but to its poetry too." As both poet and artist shared an interest in the expressive possibilities of classical mythology, the match proved ideal.

In this image, Matisse depicts the hand holding a stylus--thus suggesting the shared struggle of both artist and writer to evoke an ideal world. In the poem, a Chinese master painting a landscape in a thin blue line on a porcelain cup optimizes the creative practice. Matisse sometimes cancelled his copper plates with additional small drawings (known as "remarques") in order to sell them as a separate special edition.