The Swimming Pool, Maquette for ceramic (realized 1999 and 2005)

Commenting on The Swimming Pool, his largest cutout, Matisse said, "I have always adored the sea, and now that I can no longer go for a swim, I have surrounded myself with it." Indeed, this nearly fifty-four-foot-long frieze of blue bathers silhouetted against a white rectangular band was designed to adorn the walls of Matisse's dining room at the Hôtel Régina in Nice. At the time of its creation, the artist was restricted to his bed or to a wheelchair, and he conjured this lyrical depiction of the natural world for his personal enjoyment.

Read from right to left, beginning and ending with a representation of a starfish, the contours of the diving or swimming forms eventually dissolve until the blue shapes define the splashing water and the negative white space represents the abstract figures. In a dynamic interplay with the background support, each bather flows rhythmically into the next, sometimes breaking free of the horizontal band in a graceful arabesque. Matisse combines contrasting viewing angles—from above looking down into the water or sideways as if from in the water—so that the different postures of the figures themselves determine the composition as a whole. With this spirited yet serene aquatic imagery, the artist brings to brilliant culmination his career-long desire to create an idealized environment.

The Swimming Pool. 1952

Credit: Mrs. Bernard F. Gimbel Fund. Conservation was made possible by the Bank of America Art Conservation Project