Historical and Cultural Context - Henri Matisse

Henri Matisse - The Clown

• Born 1869, died 1954
• Became a lawyer
• Got sick and saw art as life
• Against father’s warning, “you’ll starve!” went to Paris to study art

Influenced by Light-filled paintings of the impressionists

The word ``impressionniste'' was printed for the first time in the Charivari on the 25 April 1874 by Louis Leroy, after Claude Monet's landscape entitled Impressions: soleil levant [Impressions]. This word was used to call Exposition des Impressionnistes an exhibit held in the salons of the photographer Nadar and organized by the ``Société anonyme des peintres, sculpteurs et graveurs'' [``Anonymous society of painters, sculptors and engravers''], composed of Pissarro, Monet, Sisley, Degas, Renoir, Cézanne, Guillaumin and Berthe Morisot.

Claude Monet - Impressions: soleil levant [Impressions] - 1874 -
http://metalab.unc.edu/wm/paint/glo/impressionism/

Influenced by the intense, personal visions of:
Van Gogh (van GO)

Vincent van Gogh - Sunflowers - 1889 -
http://www.vangoghmuseum.nl/collection/catalog/vglpainting.asp?ARTID=80&LANGID=0

Gauguin (go-GAN)

(Eugène-Henri-) Paul Gauguin - Arearea (Joyousness) - 1892 -
http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/gauguin/

Cézanne (say-ZAN)

Paul Cézanne - Still Life with Water Jug - c. 1892-3 -
http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/cezanne/sl/

Discontent with bright colors alone.

Paintings should have structure, the arrangement of shapes and the spaces between them.

“...to capture the essential character of things.”

Henri Matisse - Odalisque with a Turkish Chair - 1928

The first 45 years of figure painting

Reduced his shapes and flattened his colors in order to express the essence of his subject.

Henri Matisse - Goldfish - 1912

Key elements:

• Simplified shapes
• Flat colors
• Repeat patterns

Henri Matisse - Chinese Fish - 1951

“Finally I have found the most direct way to express myself – the paper cutout”

Henri Matisse - Icarus (shows the original French text) - 1943

His process

• Pick a subject
• Create shapes that symbolize the elements within the subject
• Cut out shapes spontaneously
• Arrange (play with) the shapes

Shape vocabulary

• People and plants are organic (curved)
• Backgrounds are geometric
• Rectangles act as framing devices
• Positive shapes in cut paper
• Negative shapes left from cut
• Space between shapes
• Scale (large vs small)

Henri Matisse - The Knife Thrower

Henri Matisse - The Codomas