Went to the Tate today without the kids, as they refused to see an exhibition about paper cut-outs. Not unreasonable as they spend all day making paper cut-outs.

The exhibition was amazing. I have always had a soft spot for Matisse, I was lucky enough to see the 1992 retrospective at MoMA New York, which after three rooms ended any idea I had of making a living as a painter. If thats what it took I didn’t have it. At the MoMA show what was amazing, the reduction, the simplicity, the balancing of all the elements, pattern and decoration with form and shape, colour and contrast, he had it all. The cut-outs are a simpler medium than paintings but the are so much fun. They are by the end also very very big. Memory of Oceania 1952 – early 1953, along with the Tate’s own the Snail, together just seem so happy.