The Matisse Stories

The Matisse Stories by A.S. Byatt is one of the most beautiful books I've ever read. I've read Possession and Babel Tower, so I knew what to expect. But still. A wonderful book.

from the inside the dust jacket:

This elegant, beautifully illustrated edition contains three stories, each touched in a different way by the paintings of Henri Matisse. Their subjects' lives unravel from simple beginnings -a trip to the hairdresser, a cleaning woman's passion for knitting, lunch in a Chinese restaurant- but gradually the veneer of ordinariness is peeled back to expose pain, reveal desire, or express the intensity of joy in color and creation.
...

Like living paintings, these extraordinary stories -each published here in book form for the first time- display the subtle riches of Byatt's writing in a perfect frame.

The 3 Matisse paintings pictured on the cover are The Pink Nude:

The Silence That Lives in Houses:

and The Black Door:

Kirkus Reviews concludes, "Like all good art, these paintings of the human heart linger in the mind's eye. Byatt at her accessible--if rather brief--best." The New York Times says,

... this elegant collection shares her novel's [Possession] preoccupation with the role of art and with the heart's mysteries. And in this book, too, Ms. Byatt deftly juggles an impatience with feminist ideology and a sharp insight into female sensibilities

The Independent has a positive review that includes this:

A S Byatt carries off her naked intellectuality by giving equal rein to her intense visual recall and a response to colour that is as powerful as her moral sense. The subject implicit in all three stories is mortality, recalled again and again by unceasing minute changes in what is alive and bound for death.