Conversation- 1909
Cross and Signac were experimenting with small strokes (often dots or “points”) of pure pigment to create the strongest visual vibration of intense colour. Matisse adopted their technique and modified it repeatedly, using broader strokes. By 1905 he had produced some of the boldest colour images ever created, including a striking picture of his wife, Green Stripe (Madame Matisse) (1905, Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen). The title refers to a broad stroke of brilliant green that defines Madame Matisse's brow and nose.
- 1913
In the same year Matisse exhibited this and similar paintings along with works by his artist companions, including Andre Derain and Maurice de Vlaminck. Together, the group was described by a French critic in Paris as les fauves which means “the wild ones.” The reason for this was because of the extreme and wild use of vivid colours, and the distortion of shapes. From this time it is not accurate to describe his paintings as naturalistic, the painting of his wife showed her not only as having a green nose but different colours to each side of her face and brilliant blue hair.
Artist and his Model- 1919
While he was regarded as a radical in the arts, and his style of painting is known as Fauvism, Matisse was not someone who held strong political views or who had personal opinions that he wanted to express in his work. All of his paintings are relaxed in mood and not controversial except in the spontaneous and clashing use of colours. Unlike many full time artists Matisse was not poor and although he probably had some family money his work was popular and widely known. He gained the approval of a number of influential critics and collectors, including the American expatriate writer Gertrude Stein and her family. His most important patron, who paid him for lots of his work was a Russian businessman named Sergey Schukin. Among the many important commissions he received from this Russian collector was a request to paint two mural panels illustrating dance and music in his house (really a palace) in Moscow. Both works were completed in 1911 and are now in The Hermitage, the leading art museum, in Saint Petersburg.
Matisse was not only a painter but had wide artistic interests such as his bronze sculptures, like his drawings and works in several graphic media. Often bedridden during his last years, he occupied himself with decoupage, creating works of brilliantly coloured paper cutouts arranged casually, but with an unfailing eye for design, on a canvas surface.
Interior at Nice- 1924
Matisse always demonstrated the importance of instinct and intuition in the production of a work of art. He believed that an artist did not have complete control over colour and form; instead, colours, shapes, and lines would spontaneously come to dictate to the artist how they might work in relation to one another.
Two Dancers- 1938
The south of France had an important influence on Matisse’s work and he spent a lot of his time there. In 1905 he went to stay in a small town by the sea called Collioure and his paintings from that time show the colour in his work “breaking free”. Whilst there he painted a work called “The Open Window” a view from a window that recurs frequently in his work all his life. He said that “in order to paint my pictures I need to remain for several days in the same state of mind, and I do not find this in any atmosphere but that of the Cote d’Azur.” From about 1917 until his death, Matisse spent almost all his time in the south of France, painting local scenes with bright colour. He lived in a large apartment in a hotel overlooking Nice. He once said that he wanted his art to have the affect of a good armchair on a tired businessman, this underlines the fact that most of his paintings are very relaxed and comfortable.
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Nu Bleu 1- 1952
In his old age, he was commissioned to design the decoration of the small Chapel of Saint-Marie du Rosaire at Vence (near Cannes), which he completed between 1947 and 1951. Matisse died in Nice on November 3, 1954. Unlike many artists, he was internationally popular during his lifetime, enjoying the favour of collectors, art critics, and the younger generation of artists.
Matisse's work reflects a number of influences: the decorative quality of Near Eastern or Islamic art, the stylised forms of the masks and sculpture of Africa, the bright colours of the French impressionists, and the less complicated forms of French artist Paul Cézanne and the cubists.
Henri Matisse.
Jo Moss- October 2001
