Matisse was a circus fan

The Horse, the Rider and the Clown
Henri Matisse

According to the poet Charles Baudelaire, "Genius is just childhood one can return to at will." If that's the case, the artist Henri Matisse was perhaps blurring genius with second childhood when in the final decade of his life he swapped paint and brushes for cutting shapes out of coloured paper and sticking them together.

He also returned to some childhood memories, including a fondness for the circus, as expressed in the above work, The Horse, the Rider and the Clown, which is part of a forthcoming exhibition at the Tate.

Other pictures include dancers and knife-throwers. Matisse, in fact, compared his work with that of a juggler or acrobat - mind, hand and eye working in perfect harmony.