Word: masson
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...Grow Old. Masson was once the unwilling prize pupil of Fresco Painter Puvis de Chavannes. "I loathe frescoes," he said, "and I have never done one since." During the '20s he mounted Montmartre, began painting the accomplished macabra-dabra on which his reputation rests...
...Keep in Shape. Now a squat, high-domed 53, Masson starts the day with three cups of coffee which his wife brings to him in bed (she also advises him about his painting on occasion, but he considers her taste too classical). After breakfast he pores over reproductions of old masters. Sometimes he copies their drawings, "to keep in shape, like a pianist...
...Masson's studio window commands a view of Ste.-Victoire, the mountain, which Masson, like Cézanne* before him, has pictured again & again in all weathers. Compared with Cézanne's faultlessly constructed landscapes, Masson's were explosive in composition. Cézanne's seemed to have the range of a 75, Masson's that of a cap-pistol-but they popped with the vivid brushwork that had always been his trademark...
...Masson no longer sketches in pencil on the canvas. "It paralyzes the arrival of light," he says. "I now begin with a dark background and lighten it as my painting begins to live and grow like a pancake. Do you see the light in my painting? Is there not a certain freshness...
Paris evidently thought there was. Masson's last show there was all but sold...