The Back Series
Henri Matisse
1908 - 1931
On View at MoMA
When I was an undergraduate student, I had a professor who had achieved great accomplishments in art history. She had great experiences and great stories to tell us.
One story she told us affected the way I approach art to this day.
She taught an art history course to a group of blind people. The more you think about this, the more impossible and challenging it seems. She got special permission from the Museum of Modern Art for her students to feel Matisse's four-panel The Back Series. The students all touched the art and felt Matisse's hand-work and his manifestation of the Fauve style. Upon reconvening as a group, the students all agreed that for the first time, as blind individuals, they really understood what art was.
- Grace
I remember you telling this story...really powerful. Now I want to feel those backs too!!
ReplyDeletedid grace ever tell you the story about how she felt a picasso in a museum? unauthorized??
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