The Henry Matisse Museum in Nice

The museum dedicated to the life and work of Matisse occupies a villa of the XVII century, which is cozy located among the ancient ruins of the Roman Empire. The works of Matisse are presented in the museum not in chronological order. The principle here is different - to arrange them so that the viewer, comparing one picture with another, could better understand the plans of the master.

The villa stands on a hill that offers a beautiful view of Nice, the artist’s favorite city. The museum has eighteen rooms. Among them are small and cozy, and there are huge ones - with high ceilings and wide windows, into which soft light pours.

Henry Matisse said the museum should be “a place to study the artist’s work, not the tomb of his work.” The Matisse Museum can be called, not just artistic, but even biographical, because the expositions present not only the paintings of the master, but also personal things that Matisse loved so much. Wandering through the halls, among marble tables and Venetian rocking chairs, admiring the blue vases, the glossy sides of which reflect the artist’s canvases, giving the images of paintings bizarre changes, you feel as if you really came to visit the artist, and did not come on an excursion to the museum.