The Poems of Charles of Orléans

In creating this illustrated book Matisse strove to fulfill two differing goals. On the one hand he wanted to visualize the courtly elegance of these late medieval poems and conceived of his edition as a modern painted manuscript. Matisse copied each poem in a handwritten script that emulates the poet’s late Gothic calligraphic style. On the other hand Matisse envisaged his illustrations in terms of a child’s workbook. By producing colored lithographic images Matisse conveyed the spontaneous joy he experienced when reading Charles d’Orléans’ poems.