key: cord-0033169-9n34d141
authors: Potter, Polyxeni
title: Henri Matisse (1869–1954). Icarus (from the illustrated book, Jazz, published in 1947 by E. Tériade)
date: 2003-05-03
journal: Emerg Infect Dis
DOI: 10.3201/eid0905.ac0905
sha: 06896d4cce2f5c7acef18238c110efec0865c2a7
doc_id: 33169
cord_uid: 9n34d141

nan

their range is deliberately reduced, the colors are exuberant and provocative, and the harmonious compositions are filled with almost palpable light (2) .

In "Notes of a Painter," Matisse reflected that his goal as an artist was to uncover and record with balance and purity the "essential character" of things beneath their external appearance. Icarus, on this cover of Emerging Infectious Diseases, is one of the most famous figures in Jazz. The cutout interprets the symbolic journey of Daedalus' son (5) and depicts the fall of the mythologic adventurer from the azurean skies amidst "either stars or bursts of artillery fire" (perhaps reflecting the artist's consternation in the aftermath of World War II). The pure form of the cutout, and the color that constitutes rather than clothes the form, captures the essence of human exploration.

Icarus' stretched-out arms negotiating flight, the fiery heart cloaked in the vibrant black of its aspirations, the bright chunks of sun that proved the man's demise freeze in a moment of exhilaration. About to end, the euphoric moment turns somber. The head is tilted away from the sun's splendor toward the pedestrian view below. The gliding figure, closing its celestial dance and filled with exalted vertigo, is laden with the certainty of the fall.

Our age has transformed Icarian and heliotropic quests into space exploration. We orbit the globe, defying the sun and the forces of gravity, for we still long for the charged moment of discovery that comes from roaming the earth and beyond. Yet, we have conquered neither gravity nor the mundane hazards at our destinations. Like Daedalus' crude fabrications, our wings still melt in the heat, and during travel, we fall prey to biologic hazards, exotic microbes. Be it emergent viruses (such as the cause of severe acute respiratory syndrome) or common intestinal bacteria (including Aeromonas spp.), the most insistent plague of travelers, these hazards slow the journey and limit the height of human exploration.

Masterworks from the Museum of Modern Art. New York: The Museum of Modern Art

One thousand years of painting

History of art

The tale of Daedalus and Icarus as described in Greek mythology