The Stars of Summer.(Brief Article)

When Francoise Gilot first entered Pablo Picasso's dark Paris studio during the Nazi occupation of France, she recalled in her book "Life With Picasso," "the most striking thing... was a glowing canvas by Matisse." The place was crammed with "bicycle handlebars, rolls of canvas" and other debris, said Gilot, who later became Picasso's mistress and the mother of two of his children. But "the Matisse shone among the sculptures." For half a century, from Picasso's arrival in Paris in 1904 to Henri Matisse's death in 1954, the two artists were not only rivals for the leadership of the international avant-garde but also each other's greatest critic and fan. "When one of us dies," Matisse told Picasso near the end of his own life, "there will be some things the other will never be able to talk about with anyone else."

Great rivalry has always fostered creativity. Throughout history, talented contemporaries--Verdi and Wagner, Tolstoy and Dostoevsky, Gauguin and van Gogh--have tested, taught and trumped one another, pushing each other to experiment in ways they might never have dared. In this summer's biggest blockbuster exhibit, London's Tate Modern has gathered 131 paintings and sculptures--many seen together for the first time--to explore the complicated relationship between Matisse and Picasso. Drawing on descriptions by mutual friends like Gertrude Stein and the artists' own prolific articles and letters, "Matisse Picasso" (through Aug. 18) covers the formative years in the development of cubism through Matisse's familiar "Jazz" cutouts in the 1950s. During the early part of that period, Matisse's expressive forms and bold, unconventional use of color had already established him as the darling of the avant-garde; Picasso was still defining his style. But the competition spurred each on to greater innovation.

Matisse once said that he and Picasso were as far apart "as the North Pole is from the South Pole." The two artists seemed to divide the world and take possession of opposing elements. Matisse embodied color, light, harmony; Picasso shattered the visible universe to explore its savagery. Matisse turned his eye outward and contemplated nature. "What I dream of," he wrote, "is an art of balance, of purity, of serenity, devoid of troubling or depressing subject matter." Picasso preferred to look inward, striving to depict nature through the lens of his own conflicted psyche, describing the process of painting as "a kind of struggle between my interior life and the external world as it exists for most people." In his work, he preferred to use "common objects from anywhere: a pitcher, a mug of beer, a pipe," to tell the story. "They're what I wrap up my thoughts in. They're parables."

At the heart of this clash was a fundamental disagreement about the purpose of art. In a preface to a ...