Matisse goes to Tahiti and spends 20 days alone.

Picasso said, “I’ve never seen anything. I’ve only lived inside myself.” To be engaged requires solitude. He paints a lot at night.

Neither learn to drive a car.

Objects are Matisse’s vocabulary. Women and fabrics occupy the same plane. Picasso’s objects are never really there. Feminine mystery is his subject, though he rarely asks anyone to sit for him. When he paints a chair it is Van Gogh’s chair.

Matisse rubbed out the day’s work. Picasso painted over it.

Matisse: “I require calm.” When there wasn’t joy there was still the aesthetic of joy.

After an operation Matisse can’t paint and begins instead to cut colored paper. He can work only 30 minutes a day. A wounded lion with velvet paws.

Later, Picasso brings a painting to the bedridden Matisse for approval or critique. Matisse asks to spend time with it. The painting is placed on the mantle facing his bed, where it remains for the rest of his life.

With light you draw immensity into small spaces.

At 90 Picasso says “I feel like I’m getting close to something. I’ve only just begun.”