Matisse

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Matisse
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Henry Matisse 1 December 1869 3 November 1954

• Henri Matisse was a French artist, known for his
  use of color and his fluid, brilliant and
  original draughtsmanship.
  
• Matisse was a draughtsman, printmaker, and
  sculptor, but principally a painter
  
• Matisse is one of the best-known artists of the
  20th century.
  
• Matisse was initially labeled as a Fauve (wild
  beast), but by the 1920s, he was increasingly
  hailed as an upholder of the classical tradition
  in French painting.
• Matisse worked very hard to create art like a
  comfortable armchair in which to relax.
  
• Matisse was born in Le Cateau-Cambrésis,
  Nord-Pas-de-Calais, France, and grew up in
  Bohain-en-Vermandois in Northeastern France,
  where his parents owned a seed business
• Matisse initially studied law, but in 1889, after
  an attack of appendicitis, his mother brought him
  art supplies and he decided to become a painter
  
• Matisses most admired painter was Chardin as an
  art student he made copies of 4 his works
  
• In 1897-1898 the painter John Peter Russell
  introduced him to Impressionism and to the work
  of Van Gogh. Matisse's style changed completely,
  and he would later say "Russell was my teacher,
  and Russell explained color theory to me.
• With the model Caroline Joblau, he had a
  daughter, Marguerite, born in 1894. In 1898 he
  married Amélie Noellie Parayre the two raised
  Marguerite together and had two sons, Jean (born
  1899) and Pierre (born 1900). Marguerite often
  served as a model for Matisse.
• Around 1904 he met Pablo Picasso and they became
  life-long friends as well as rivals and are often
  compared one key difference between them is that
  Matisse drew and painted from nature, while
  Picasso was much more inclined to work from
  imagination.
• Matisses subjects painted most frequently (as
  well as by Picasso) were women and still lives,
  with Matisse more likely to place his figures in
  fully realized interiors.
• His friends organized and financed the Académie
  Matisse in Paris, a private and non-commercial
  school in which Matisse instructed young artists
  (operated 1911-1917)
• Matisse died of a heart attack at the age of 84
  in 1954.

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Luxe, Calme et Volupté1905
Musée National d'Art Moderne, Centre Georges
Pompidou, Paris .
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Fauvism
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Henry Matisse Fauvism

• Les Fauves was a short-lived and loose grouping
  of early 20th century Modern artists whose works
  emphasized painterly qualities and strong color
  over the representational values retained by
  Impressionism.
• While Fauvism as a style began around 1900 and
  continued beyond 1910, the movement as such
  lasted only three years, 19051907, and had three
  exhibitions.
• The leaders of the movement were Henri Matisse
  and André Derain
  
• Matisse was influenced by the works of the
  post-Impressionists Paul Cézanne, Gauguin, Van
  Gogh and Paul Signac, and also by Japanese art
  and made colour a crucial element
• In 1905, Matisse and a group of artists now known
  as "Fauves" exhibited together in a room at the
  Salon d'Automne.
  
• The paintings expressed emotion with wild, often
  dissonant colors, without regard for the
  subject's natural colors.
  
• Matisse showed Open Window and Woman with the Hat
  at the Salon. Critic Louis Vauxcelles described
  the work with the phrase "Donatello au milieu des
  fauves!" (Donatello among the wild beasts),
  referring to a Renaissance-type sculpture that
  shared the room
• The pictures gained considerable condemnation,
  such as "A pot of paint has been flung in the
  face of the public" from the critic Camille
  Mauclair, but also some favorable attention
• The painting that was singled out for attacks was
  Matisse's Woman with a Hat, which was bought by
  Gertrude and Leo Stein this had a very positive
  effect on Matisse, who was suffering
  demoralization from the bad reception of his
  work
• The decline of the Fauvist movement, after 1906,
  did nothing to affect the rise of Matisse many
  of his finest works were created between 1906 and
  1917

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Woman with a Hat 1905
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.
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Self-Portrait in a Striped T-shirt 1906
Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen, Denmark
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The Dance (2nd version) 1910
Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia
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Open Window, Collioure 1905
National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC.
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Portrait of Madame Matisse (The green line) 1905
Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen, Denmark
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Young Sailor 1906
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City
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The Dessert Harmony in Red 1908
Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia
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Anemones and Chinese Vase 1922
Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore, USA
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Portrait of Lydia Delectorskaya1947
Hermitage, Saint Petersburg
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After he and his wife separated in 1941, and
until his death he would be cared for by a
Russian woman, Lidia Delektorskaya, formerly one
of his models.
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Painting with Scissors, Jazz

• Jazz (1947) is a book of about one hundred prints
  based on paper cutouts
  
• In 1941 he was diagnosed with cancer and,
  following surgery, he started using a wheelchair.
  
  
• Matisse was 70, in poor health, could no longer
  draw or paint easily with a pencil or brush.
  
• Matisse used scissors to cut out simple forms
  from brightly colored paper painted to his
  specifications with gouache, then arranged them
  on another sheet of gouache-painted paper.
  Assistants took these assemblages and prepared
  them for printing.
• The themes in Jazz can be separated into four
  categories the world of the French music hall
  and circus, mythology and legends, symbolism for
  the War between France and Germany, and memories
  from his life and travels.
• Originally he wanted to illustrate poems, but
  just plain words seemed more powerful to him
  
• Some of the pages have Matisse's text on the left
  side and an image on the right other pages, like
  The Funeral of Pierrot, cover the entire sheet
  and there is no text.
• The depiction of Icarus falling through a field
  of deep blue with yellow starbursts all around
  him can also be read as a visual metaphor for the
  resistance fighters' courageous attempts to
  navigate the skies between the Nazi artillery
  shelling. The victor/victim duality of war is
  symbolized in the complementary but opposing
  dangers expressed in self-inflicted danger in the
  case of the sword swallower to and victimization
  at the hands of another in the depiction of the
  knife thrower and assistant.
• The name In jazz music, a musician can take a
  simple, familiar, even conventional melody and
  with a few changes twist it into a barely
  recognizable tune.
• Jazz is one of the most successful of the limited
  edition books published by 20th century artists,
  including those by Picasso, Chagall and Dufy.
  Some of the prints from Jazz have become classic
  images and have been reproduced countless times
  as posters.
• Blue Nudes are a series of gouaches découpées
  executed in 1952. They represent female nudes
  either seated or standing, and are among
  Matisse's final works in any medium

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Icarus 1947
Illustration for the book 'Jazz', screen-print
after gouache on paper cut-out.
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Knife Thrower 1947
from Jazz, print from paper collage
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Sword Swallower 1947
from Jazz, print from paper collage
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Large Red Interior 1948
Musée Nazional d'Art Moderne Centre Georges
Pompidou, Paris
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Creole Dancer 1950
Musée Matisse, Nice
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Beasts of the Sea, 1950
Paper collage on canvas, collection of the
National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC.

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Blue Hair 1952
Gouache-painted paper cut-outs stuck to paper
mounted on canvas from Blue Nudes series
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Bouquet 1953
UCLA Hammer Museum in Los Angeles
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Kings Sadness 1952
Gouache on paper and canvas, Pompidou Centre,
Paris
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