Henri Matisse: Woman before an Aquarium (1921–23)

Gallery Notes: In the first two decades of the 20th century, Henri Matisse visited exhibitions of Islamic art and traveled to Algeria and Morocco, where he collected pottery, textiles, and tiles. Years later, while living in Nice, France, Matisse reflected on these experiences, integrating visual elements he encountered, such as the patterned textile screen, into his paintings. In Woman before an Aquarium, the carefully subdued decorative pattern of the screen contributes to the psychologically rich, contemplative mood of this interior scene.

"Happy birthday to us, they cheered, ignoring the irrelevant incumbent."

For all of the existential dread that fueled so much of this series, little damage has resulted. Yes, calamities ensued, but very little was likely to last even to the impeachment, for he uniformly chose poorly both in terms of objectives and executors. The incompetence seemed simultaneously stunning and unsurprising, for even those not closely watching his first so-called administration understood that he had never been anybody's administrator. Gifted solely in self-promotion, none of his many promises ever came to pass.

He spawned more legal actions than anything else, and he succeeded with very few defenses except to delay what everyone always understood would not be victories. Furthermore, he chose poorly in terms of strategic focus. He attempted to change elements of little consequence, where forward evolution held the far stronger hand. Almost everything he attempted Fizzled.

Looking backwards, it might appear that I was overly concerned, for I knew what kind of clown he'd always been, unable to maintain focus or attention on anything for long. So obsessed with his own needs that he never could see what might benefit anybody else. He seemed cruel, but he has probably been much more oblivious. I can't argue that obliviousness can't inadvertently hurt many, and has, but I can successfully say that such damage seems short-lived. Yes, it would have been much more preferable for us to have spent those months focusing on increasing overall wellbeing, but we knew for certain that wasn't going to happen. The opportunity costs might well prove to have been the most onerous. Nothing prevents us from changing course back from crazy land, nothing except the continued presence of an incumbent with rapidly declining cognitive function.

He was always dangerous because he was so damned oblivious. He'd managed to find people who are nearly his equal to populate his second-term cabinet. A few seem to be his intellectual inferior. These must have been incredibly difficult to find or might have been randomly chosen, like so many of his "strategic" decisions have apparently been. His obsession with golf remains the most baffling for me. He can hardly seem even to pretend to be in his office for more than a scant few minutes before he and his entourage have to zoot off somewhere to play another round of golf in what seems like an infinite number of rounds. I took a walk around a golf course once. Once. The experience was almost like hiking in a forest, but ever so much more boring, for there was little to see other than the effects of groundskeeping. I found it neither emotionally nor intellectually renewing. Throw some competition in, though, as well as some ill-disguised cheating so he always wins, and I can almost see the attraction. Forgive me if I don't seem all that appreciative.

The continuous waffling seems to be the most prominent legacy he has been leaving behind. Tuesday's proclamation inevitably became Thursday's abnegation. A cabinet secretary would have been lobbying for some constituent, and a formerly fervent insistence would deflate without apparent resistance. Even his most passionate positions seemed to always remain open for further renegotiation. I suspect payoffs were usually involved, for we've never had an incumbent less embarrassed over taking bribes. His ethics and morals have been continually up for sale. He thumbed his nose at so many rules that he developed a disfiguring callous on his thumb.

He ended his first five months in office with a genuine extravaganza, which he insisted would be worth much more than its forty-some million-dollar cost. Of course, it wasn't. Unsurprisingly, the resulting spectacle underwhelmed even the more brown-nosed cabinet secretaries. His staff was reduced to failing to induce people to come to his parade, offering money and a meal, but still few chose to stand in near one hundred percent humidity and heat beneath weeping skies. Not even the crack military units could manage to keep straight lines after hiking over from the Pentagon in fierce drizzle. Another Fizzle. It would have been surprising if that parade had turned out as advertised, for it would have been the first initiative undertaken by this pseudo-administration that had. It was a fairly sure bet that it wouldn't, but only because it couldn't. The citizens who might have been reveling, if they'd felt they had anything left to revel about, chose to take to the streets instead to perform in their own impromptu parades. Hundreds of thousands of so-called ordinary citizens reminding themselves and our incumbent that there are and will be no kings in this country. The zeal the people exhibited in asserting their perspective was the one thing about our incumbent's birthday that hadn't Fizzled. Happy birthday to us, they cheered, ignoring the irrelevant incumbent.

©2025 by David A. Schmaltz - all rights reserved

Tags: #CHope , #PureSchmaltz