I used to take small children to the museums in DC. On one occasion we visited an exhibit of Matisse. I thought of this when I was browsing through past blog entries of The Shy Museumgoer and came across her entry on Matisse from 2022. https://theshymuseumgoer.com/2022/11/06/matisse-paints-joy-and-simple-pleasures/ She gives a lovely description of why he painted as he did.

When I was very small I was taken to see several of the museums in downtown DC. It was a Sunday afternoon deal, when we were still dressed up in our church clothes, stiff frocks and slippery shoes. The streets that crisscross the mall were not yet blocked off so that’s where we parked. Terrifying demons carved from wood at the entrance of the Freer Art gallery remained in my memory for years. They were not really sixteen feet tall but from my low perspective they seemed that way.

The West Wing of the National Gallery of Art was quite different from the Freer. On the Mall side a tremendous staircase led up to huge doors. Inside were high ceilings and cool fountains splashing. There were also pictures of dead turkeys and oysters, along with other more palatable paintings. The guards frowned upon small children trying to slide a few feet along the floor, especially since this involved a running start. I do remember one of them encouraging me to look at a painting that was dots up close and a picture from far away. (It wasn’t the header picture here, which is Seurat’s Seascape at Port-en-Bessin, NGA, public domain, but something very like it.)

The East Wing is very modern, angular in shape, with galleries in odd spaces, up and down stairs. It has a huge mobile in the lobby instead of a fountain and a walkway high up across the open atrium. Especially, it has works of art by Matisse high up in a tower. The Matisse creations I remember from expeditions in the late ’90’s were paper cutouts. I looked them up recently trying to understand my memories. They are not always accessible because they are fragile; the lights are kept low and the hours of exhibition short. They were available on one of those visits with small children and the kids liked them.

What struck me the most back then was, that in the West Wing my kids commented on pictures, and in the East Wing they commented on the building. As a building the East Wing triggers even in me a longing to wander around on the balconies and walkways, to explore the staircases that lead to a high tower room. All that would be even more amazing seen from childhood’s half height.

Matisse’s art is mostly not in the public domain, so visit Diane Tucker’s engaging article to see some of it, and learn about a fascinating artist. Also follow this link for a self-portrait at the NGA. https://www.nga.gov/artworks/66505-self-portrait