Matisse Chapel (Chapelle du Rosaire de Vence)

For what he called the "crowning achievement" of his career, French artist Henri Matisse abandoned the vibrant oil paints and pigments he was known to use in his work to build this unassuming, humble chapel in the village of Vence in the French Riviera.

The chapel was built and decorated between 1947 and 1951. Matisse designed every detail, from the architecture of the chapel down to the priest's unconventionally colorful vestments and the crucifix on the altar. He created this church for the Dominican Sisters of Vence, specifically Sister Jacques-Marie, as a token of gratitude for when she cared for the elderly artist after an operation to treat his bowel cancer. He finished this chapel at the age of 81, just three years before his death.

Limiting his color palette to blue, green, and yellow, Matisse created three sets of simple yet impressive stained glass windows, using the divinity of sunlight as his paint. There are no figural representations in these windows; they are made up of abstract vegetational forms. The kaleidoscopic light refracted from these windows shines upon the three other murals in the chapel, of which Matisse painted with black paint on white tiles. Depicted in childlike yet evocative strokes, the murals—Saint Dominic, Virgin and the Child, and Stations of the Cross—show recognizable religious scenes and figures.

Matisse wrote of the chapel: "This chapel is for me the outcome of an entire life of work...it was not a project that I chose, but one for which I was chosen by fate, now that I'm at the end of my road".