The paper cutouts, prepainted with blue gouache, synthesized the intrinsic qualities of both painting and drawing—form, color, and line—and allowed the artist "to draw in paper," as he described it. This new idiom, which he had used for the first time in 1931 (while developing his large composition Dance for Dr. Albert C. Barnes), enabled him to create images in which form and outline were inseparable. During his final years, when illness left Matisse bedridden, the cutouts, or gouaches découpées, became virtually his only means of expression, still exuding the master's undiminished inventiveness and creativity. The technique opened up new possibilities for the artist.