Following in the footsteps of Henri Matisse (1869-1954) usually means strolling on the Riviera, walking under the palm trees, looking for the scents of lavender, wandering the streets of old Nice and the hill of Cimiez in search of the different addresses the painter under an azure blue sky that he painted through windows behind which his odalisques lounge. Dolce vita, luxury, calm and voluptuousness. So, this Tuesday morning in November, in the cold wind that whips, along the identical red brick facades aligned on straight streets like a border of the country ch'ti, we wonder what Matisse is doing there.
It comes from there. We go upstream towards his native land. The most sunny of painters was born in the North, here in Cateau-Cambrésis, where the museum in his name whose creation he had encouraged, by bequeathing him 82 works from his personal collection in 1952, for his creation, reopens this Saturday 23 November after two years of work and significant expansions, at a cost of 13 million euros, including 11.2 million borne by the department.
