The Nasher

Calder
















Hepworth
















Rodin





















Moore



I couldn't take pics of any of the Matisse, for obvious reasons, but...I snapped these on the grounds of the Nasher. And it does a soul good...well, it does my soul good...to walk around and drink in the beauty that these artists have created.

Disclaimer: I know absolutely nothing about art, and have never taken an art appreciation class in my life...I admit that I dunno even what, exactly, that entails...but I've been pouring over art, in books and museums, regularly since I was a kid...and again at this exhibit of Matisse, it was clear to me that Matisse loved women, and loved the female form. Picasso is highly acclaimed, and he is supposed to have said the wonderful statement "I wish that I could draw as well as a child". For what it's worth, I couldn't find that quote attributed to him on Google, but I did find the almost equally terrific "Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up." Still, I've never been as big a fan of Picasso as I am of Matisse, and a big part of that is the way Picasso depicts people, especially women, which often seems disjointed and sometimes almost hostile to me. In 1999, the Matisse-Picasso show that eventually traveled across the country (it was at MOMA in New York in 2003) originated at The Kimbell in Forth Worth. I went 3 times in the slightly more than 3 months the exhibit was at The Kimbell, fascinated by the contrast between the two contemporaries/rivals, especially in their depictions of the female form.

Before I became a fan of his painting or his sculpture, I was attracted to Matisse's vibrant paper cutouts that he called "cutting into color".

In this exhibit, for the first time, I was able to see the origin of those dynamic forms that are such a large part of his work in the later part of his life.

All of which is to say, if you get a chance to see this exhibit as it makes it's way around the country, GO......