»Matisse is always compared to Picasso«, writes the Japanese artist Riichiro Kawashima in January 1933: »Quite a long time ago (1913), when Picasso was living in a fashionable studio overlooking the Montparnasse cemetery, ... I asked him, »Do you like Matisse?« He widened his big, bright eyes and said, «Well, Matisse paints beautiful and elegant pictures. He is understanding.« ... When I visited Matisse in Nice four years ago (1929), I asked him, »What do you think of Picasso?« After a moment of silence he said: »He is capricious and unpredictable, but he understands things.« In his study, Bois describes thoroughly the relationship, rivalry and, later, interaction between Matisse and Picasso.
