Henri Matisse

Matisse was almost 21 before he held a brush; he had no prior interest in art, nor anything else for that matter. He came from nowhere and for quite a few years was nobody in the art world. His teachers discouraged him, almost without exception. Only one of his teachers told him he had been born to simplify painting. He faced financial difficulties for a portion of his adult life. He suffered from tremendous anxiety. And he faced significant illness later in life. So how did this man become one of the most celebrated painters of the 20th century? How did he change the face of art in modern times, if not forever?