Henri Matisse

Today is the anniversary of the birth of painter Henri Matisse in 1869, in Le Cateau, France. As a young man, he had no interest in art. He went to law school in Paris and never visited a single museum. Had it not been for a case of appendicitis, he might never have become an artist. Bedridden for several weeks during his recovery, he took up painting as a way to pass the time. It was a revelation. He said, For the first time in my life I felt free, quiet, and alone . . . carried along by a power alien to my life as a normal man. At 22, he quit the law to begin work as a full-time artist. He was a revolutionary who dressed like a bourgeois, and he once said, It has bothered me all my life that I do not paint like everybody else.

-Writers Almanac