Matisse November Cats

More about Henri Matisse

In 1888, Matisse passed the bar exam and planned to become a lawyer; however, while bedridden after an attack of appendicitis, his mother gave him some art supplies to keep him busy. She was the first to tell him that art is not just drawing the object but listening to the emotions that the object evokes. Matisse said, “From the moment I held the box of colors in my hands, I knew this was my life.” In fact, he was to say to his wife, “I love you dearly, mademoiselle; but I shall always love painting more.”

Matisse suffered on and off from cancer and spent the last decade of his life primarily bedridden or in a wheel chair but he never stopped making art!