O, never say that thy king hath sorrow;
For loneliness tis nature’s royal heart;
Nor ask him his golden crown to borrow;
Ask of thyself for kingdom do thy part.
Upon this realm, a flame of justice burns;
And over time, ancients spoke of honey;
On loyal tongues where sweetness ever yearns;
Where throne room fills with light, warm and sunny.
Never imagine disloyal discourse,
For shortcomings besiege every station;
Like princes failing to remain on course,
And sorrowful times can destroy a nation,
So raise the king in glad jubilation;
For his heart’s in need of supplication.
The Sorrows of the King was Matisse’s final self portrait. This work refers to one
of Rembrandt’s
paintings, David Playing the Harp before Saul, in which the young
biblical hero plays to distract the king from his melancholy, as well as
to Rembrandt’s late self portraits. Here Matisse
depicts the themes of old age, of looking back towards earlier life (La vie
antérieure, the title of a poem by Baudelaire that Matisse had already
illustrated) and of music soothing all cares.
Matisse has represented himself by the central black form, like a silhouette of
himself sitting in his armchair, surrounded by the pleasures that have enriched
his life. He has combined a number of recurring themes from his life. The
yellow petals fluttering away have the gaiety of musical notation while the
green odalisque symbolises the Orient and a dancer pays homage to the female
body and sensuousness.
Matisse’s Sorrow of the King is an influential piece from near
the end of his life. Many critics consider this to be his most innovative
period. He had begun to experience severe arthritis and had a bout with cancer
which forced him to be confined in a wheelchair. Instead of having his artistic
talent dry up in the face of these challenges, Matisse was determined that he
would keep doing his life’s work as an artist. He could no longer stand to
paint, so instead he created paintings with scissors by cutting pieces of
colorful paper and gluing them onto larger pieces of paper with the help of his
assistants. They were called ‘gouaches découpés.’ Sorrow of the King is
a fine example of this style, with its use of stunning colors and shapes to
create a scene.