Visual feast

A good many years ago I wrote a short article about the recent work of an artist (who shall remain nameless), and characterised it — in a very positive way — as ‘decorative’. This did not go down at all well, and I was asked to change what I had written and remove this offending word. I refused, and the piece was not published. Such was, and still is, the stigma attached to ‘decorative’. Though it can be intended as praise, it is more often construed as damning criticism. The one great painter whose work has always defied such narrow categorisation is Henri Matisse (1869–1954). A new and utterly delightful show in the Academy’s Sackler Galleries addresses for the first time the heart of his preoccupation with la décoration, by showing some of the fabrics he collected. These have been stored away for the half-century since Matisse’s death, an unseen treasure awaiting this moment and the revelations they offer about their owner’s approach to making art.