In 1905, when Henri Matisse and his fellow Fauves (“wild beasts”) exhibited together at the Salon d’Automne, the room was alive with vibrant color. Indeed, the critic Louis Vauxcelles described it as an “orgy of pure tones.” Through the decades, Matisse would move through a number of phases, pushing beyond norms, experimenting with color, perception, and sight. He connected with avant-garde artists in Germany and Russia, learned from the abstraction of František Kupka. Even as an old man he didn’t stop: with scissors and colored paper he created a joyful series of cutouts. “Color, above all and perhaps even more than drawing,” he said, “is a liberation.” This exhibition presents work that follows the artist’s path from beginning to end, with much of the art coming from the recently shuttered Centre Pompidou. —Elena Clavarino