The White Elephant’s Nightmare

Abstract

Late in life, an ailing Henri Matisse, unable to use brush or pen, resorted to ‘drawing with scissors’. Cutting out shapes from sheets of paper painted by an assistant, who then glued them onto paper under his direction, Matisse composed a vivid series of images from the world of popular entertainment, especially the circus. Together with some handwritten testamentary statements on the painter’s craft, these images — one of which is entitled ‘The White Elephant’s Nightmare’ — were published in the form of a livre de peintre, entitled Jazz (Matisse, 1947).¹ Over and above the political, legal and social concerns registered in its title, this is a book of ethics. To be more precise, it is about the conceptualisation and improvement of ethical conduct. I would like if I may to invoke the improvisatory skills and the serene confidence displayed in Jazz as a model for the way of doing ethics which has evolved in the course of following up the book’s more specialised concerns.