The Matisse Stories is a collection of three interrelated short stories that each begin with a black and white drawing by Matisse. It is ironic that Byatt selects black and white drawings as her representations of Matisse’s work because Matisse is most famous for his use of vibrant color. Even a simple Google Images search for Henry Matisse will display a seemingly-endless array of vivid paintings, with black and white images only rarely appearing. The question to consider, then, becomes why Byatt selected black and white images to use in her collection and how these images function in her work, particularly in conjunction with the literary text.
The characters of Robin and Mrs. Brown in the story “Art Work” demonstrate not only the infusion of color into Byatt’s text via literature, but also the connection this color infusion has with Matisse. Rather than show the vibrancy of Matisse’s work through the drawings themselves, Byatt references this vibrancy through her fictional characters. For instance, when describing how Robin first learned to paint by painting a fish tank, she says, “He can still remember the illicit, it seemed to him, burst of sensuous delight with which he saw the wet carmine trail of his first flick of the brush, the slow circling of the wet hairs in a cobalt pool, the dashes of yellow ochre and orange, as he conjured up, on matt white, wet and sinuous fish-tails and fins.” The descriptions of movement and color in this quote allow the reader to create a mental painting for him or herself from these written words.
Not only do these characters demonstrate literature’s ability to infuse the black and white page with vivid color, but they also comment on the creative process, particularly that successful art is created not merely as a quest for power, but by presenting ordinary objects in uniquely artistic ways. Robin, the starving artist figure in “Art Work,” explains to his wife Debbie about his “vision of color,” that the successful use of color is not about “softness,” as Robin says, but about “power, calm power.” While the story ultimately supports the idea that proper use of vibrant color does indeed lead to power, Robin is unsuccessful in his attempt to paint like Matisse. Robin “tried putting great washes of strong color on the canvas, a la Matisse, a la Van Gogh, and it came out watery and feeble and absurd, there was nothing he could do.” Mrs. Brown, Debbie and Robin’s maid, however, is able to use color as Robin fails to by creating art out of common objects. When Debbie sees Mrs. Brown’s display in the art gallery for the first time, she “thinks inconsequentially of a ball she once went to, a Chelsea Arts Ball, in the mulberry-colored dress which is now the dragon-scales.” The memory is “inconsequential” for Debbie because it is not directly related to her current situation, that of shock that her maid has been well-received into an art gallery. The power of Mrs. Brown’s art, then, lies in its ability to take everyday items and make them into creative, colorful works that powerfully move their viewer into the realm of both memory and emotion.
A.S. Byatt’s The Matisse Stories is a worthy read because it paints through words rather than strokes and thereby allows the reader to create art work in his or her own mind. Like Mrs. Brown, the reader is empowered with the ability to transform everyday life into creative work, evoking both memory and emotion: that is what reading a painting looks like?
-- Ashley Clark, Graduate Student, UWF
