Henri Matisse was a French Artist, noted for his use of color and his fluid and original draftsmanship. Born Henri-Émile-Benoît Matisse he grew up in Bohain-en-Vermandois. In 1887 he went to Paris to study law and worked as a court administrator in his birth-place, Le Cateau-Cambrésis, after gaining his
qualification. Following an attack of appendicitis he took up painting during his convalescence. After his recovery, he returned to Paris in 1891 to study art at the Académie Julian and became a student of William-Adolphe Bouguereau
and Gustave Moreau.
Influenced by the works of Paul Cézanne, Gauguin,
Van Gogh and Paul Signac, and also by traditional
Japanese art, he started to see color as a crucial element of composition. His art was based on a method that consists of separating elements of the work into line, color, composition – and then joining the elements in a synthesis. He was the
only Fauvist to develop his work as a balance between color and line, in flat compositions, without traditional means of giving the illusion of depth (shading and modeling). He was one of the first painters of the
Fauvist ("Wild Beast") movement to be interested in "primitive" art. Matisse abandoned the palette of the Impressionists and established his characteristic style, with its flat, brilliant color and fluid line. His subjects were primarily women, interiors, and still life.
His first exhibition was in 1901 and his first solo exhibition in
1904. His fondness for bright and expressive color became more pronounced after he moved southwards in 1905 to work with André Derain on the
French Riviera. His paintings were marked by the intense shades of color and characterized by flat shapes and controlled lines, with expression dominant over detail. The decline of the Fauvist
movement after 1906 did nothing to affect the rise of Matisse; he had moved beyond them and many of his finest works were created between 1906 and 1917 when he was an active part of the great gathering of artistic talent in Montparnasse.
He was a friend as well as rival of the younger Picasso, with whom he is often compared.
Matisse lived in Cimiez on the French Riviera, now a suburb of the city of Nice, from 1917 until his death in 1954. In 1941 he was diagnosed with cancer and, following surgery, he used a wheelchair. Matisse did not allow this setback to stop him working, and with the aid of assistants he started creating cut
paper collages called gouaches découpés. These demonstrate his ability to bring his eye for colour and geometry to a new medium of utter simplicity, which exude a playful and delightful power.
Draughtsman, Printmaker, Sculptor, but principally a Painter, Henri
Matisse achieved widespread fame during his lifetime. Today, a Matisse painting can fetch as much as US$ 17 million.
Quotes by Matisse
"What I dream of is an art of balance, of purity and serenity devoid of troubling or disturbing subject matter... like a comforting influence, a mental balm - something like a good armchair."
"Suppose I have to paint a woman's body: first I give it grace, charm, then it is necessary to give it something more. I am going to condense the meaning of this body by seeking its essential lines. The charm will be less apparent at first, but it will emerge in the end from the new image that I will have
obtained and will have a wider meaning, a more fully human one."
"The artist has but one idea. He is born with it and spends a lifetime developing it and making it breathe. I basically work without theory. I am aware only of the forces I use, and I move along the course of the picture's creation, pushed by an idea that I come to know only gradually as it develops."
"Instinct must be thwarted just as one prunes the branches of a tree so that it will grow better."
|
