Against Autobiography: Henri Matisse's Essays on Art

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This article examines Henri Matisse's essays on art as a form of life writing that eschews autobiography. It is argued that in his early essays Matisse used the written word to communicate an image of the self that was devoid of personal detail and to counter biographical approaches to the interpretation of artworks that had reached a height in French critical literature about the arts during the nineteenth century. Illustrating this point, a parallel is drawn between concepts of the self expressed in Matisse's writings and Marcel Proust's Against Sainte-Beuve. The article traces Matisse's growing suspicion of the written word and examines his identification of the transcendental ego as the organizing principle of the artwork. Finally, a thematic continuity is proposed between Matisse's ‘Notes of a Painter’ (1908) and his artist's book Jazz (1947). Jazz is interpreted as the culmination of a form of life writing begun in the earlier essay in its use of handwriting to serve two contrasting purposes: the narration of an empirical (autobiographical) self and the staging of a transcendental (artistic) self. Writing is cast as a form of physical making and becomes simultaneously a demonstration of, and reflection on, the unique ‘handwork’ (‘signe-main’) of the artist.