Bees swarm, swallows swerve, a shark swims the wall … with a pair of giant dress-making scissors, Matisse cut himself free from the miseries of illness and old age, creating luscious cut-outs that unleashed a new art. Adrian Searle eats up a joyous show at Tate Modern.
Scissors, paper, pins – these were all it took for Matisse, in the last years of his life, often bedridden and feeling he was living on borrowed time, to create the works that now fill a suite of galleries at Tate Modern. What a joyous and fascinating exhibition this is. I eat it with my eyes and never feel sated.