General

Journey of Light

A Journey of Light and Color

by Pat Fok Review by David Lorimer, December 2015

Published: 2015
Publisher: Assouline
Pages: 300 pp.
ISBN: 9781639369102

Publisher’s description

The remarkable and little-known story of the two groundbreaking winters that Henri Matisse spent painting in Morocco, a fertile period that transformed his art and marked his work until the very end. In winter of 1912, Henri Matisse—forty-two, nearing mid-career, and yet to find lasting critical acceptance, public admiration, or financial security since exploding to the forefront of the avant-garde in 1905 with his iconoclastic Fauve paintings—was struggling. Once the vanguard leader, the Parisian avant-garde now considered him passé. His important early collectors, including Gertrude and Leo Stein, had stopped buying his work and were fully championing Picasso, and he had exhibited little in the last few years. In the face of Cubism that was now dominating the art scene, Matisse needed to get away from Paris in order to advance his distinctive artistic vision. Almost on a whim, he went to Tangier. Matisse had already been profoundly inspired by Islamic art, and was primed for his arrival in the Moroccan city where such art was integrated into everyday life. Despite the challenges of rain, insomnia, depression, and finding models, the sojourn was such a success he returned the following winter, which would lead to even greater artistic triumph. Matisse in Morocco tells the story of the artist's groundbreaking time in Tangier and how it altered Matisse’s development as a painter and indelibly marked his work for the next four decades. Through Koehler's research and travel, we experience Matisse's time in Tangier, the paintings and their subjects, his relationships with his wife Amélie and his two important collectiors, and then come to understand the impact Morocco—its light, colors, culture, and artistic traditions—had on his art. From Landscape Viewed From a Window, to Zorah on the Terrace, from Kasbah Gate to the dream-like tableau Moroccan Café, these works from Morocco are now recognized as some of the most significant and dazzling of Matisse’s illustrious career.

I reviewed Pat Fok's Enchanted Light here when it came out in 2011. Her new book is an equally exquisite production on the finest paper and in itself a work of extraordinary beauty and care. Pat learned her craft with Ansel Adams and explains her philosophy of life of living in and capturing the moment (often of stillness) with her camera. This reveals a knowledge of the heart, which Carl Jung says can only be obtained by living fully. Her travels have taken her to many sacred and remote places and her photos convey the beauty and harmony of nature, statues and buildings. Each photo has a simple commentary that recalls her journey and feelings. They invite the reader into a contemplative state of mind to accompany her images.

There are holy people as well as sacred places and simple portraits – I was struck by her photo of a simple woman with her son: their open smiles spoke volumes. Some images from 30 years ago recall a time before cable cars and tourist infrastructure brought in crowds of people. The last part recaps some images from the exhibition and book Enchanted Light and through the extraordinary light phenomena depicted the question arises of what is so-called inner and outer reality and how the former is reflected in the latter. There are photos of transparent bodies, light emanating from holy people, another body rising out of the first and many other orbs and patterns of light not visible to the naked eye – for instance dancing energy patterns criss-crossing a young Daoist master. Readers will appreciate how photography teaches one to live in the moment and to connect with the beauty of our planet. Pat also connects these light phenomena in her photos with her open heart so that 'occasionally the land unfolds its secrets and heaven its light, allowing me to gaze into its mystery'. This extraordinary volume allows the reader to take a parallel journey into the mystical beauty of landscape and light.

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