What was Matisse’s input into the art world during the 20^th century?

What led to the liberation of colour in the modern period?

These are some of the changes that led to the liberation of colour and art in the modern period Before the French revolution art was mainly classical, romantic and religious. It belonged to genres. Colour was static. Light and dark, shading. The primary colours red blue and yellow, used to demarcate perspective. Each painting was stylized, but now people were wanting change. The Industrial revolution was happening, horizons were widening. Travel was opening up, artists were recognising that there was art other than what they knew. There was the Japanese woodcut with it’s bold outlines and blocks of colour. African art with its geometric forms, Pacific art full of colour and pattern. In Germany and Austria new ideas in art were forming infact all over Europe there was change. Psychoanalysis was coming into vogue, ideas were changing. The First world war was upon them. Men had to fight or make artistic posters. This also influenced the type of art that was being produced Art was virtually forced to change through the happenings of Europe at that time, at the beginning of the 20^th century.

What were the Main Influences on Matisse’s work?

At the end of the 19^th century Turner, Gauguin and Cezanne , to name but a few of the modernist painters, were bringing a new era of art to the fore. Matisse was familiar with Turners vibrant sunsets of colour and light. He viewed his exhibition in London in 1897.He was familiar with Gauguins Pacific paintings of an idyllic world of beautiful bodies and colours. Cezanne was trying to paint what he saw, in the form of colour and geometric forms. Matisse purchased one of his paintings in 1900. He also bought a Van Gaugh drawing and a bust by Rodin. Pointillism was being experimented with, as a form of painting with colour in dots, one colour bringing out the other, as in Seurat’s, The Bathers. Matisse had studied art at various academys and schools at St. Quentin and in Paris. He Knew Andre Derain, Chabaud, and Jean Puy, all up and coming artists of the time. He also had an important alliance with Picasso, in the form of keeping abrest of what the other was doing.

Fauvism 1903-7

The 20thcentury was a time of great change, in literature, science, technology, politics, and of course the art world, representational art and perspective were all out the window as it were, and freedom of art reigned. Matisse and a few friends put work into a Paris exhibition in 1905 and there was a great outcry of” Wild Beasts”, so the Fauve movement was began, Their work had been called barbaric, naïve, and likened to a child’s work. The style of Fauvism was colourful, and assertive, lyrical, with the use of flat areas of colour, and strong application of paint. Matisse was the most powerful artist of the group. He was a born leader and encouraged other artists. Fauvism was shaped by the landscape of the Midi. It was at that time an assault on the French praised art. German expressionism tater adopted the aggressiveness of Fauve colour. The other Fauvists were, Maurice de Vlamink, Andre’ Derain, Roul Duffy and George Braque. Braque later moved into cubism with Picasso, Derain’s painting became tighter and old masterly. Matisse had found his niche.

How Matisse used colour and composition.

From the mid 1980s colour in France had become more advanced. It was a sign of vitality and wellbeing, feeling, energy and joy de vivre’. Colour was a gift. It was the outer and inner vision of fusion and harmony and pictorial organization. Matisse uses the primary colours. He paints in blue, green, yellow and red and notices that each brushstroke diminishes the importance of the preceding strokes. He wants a relationship between each colour , between the tones. They must sustain each other, form a harmony. He fused colour and form to convey his optical and emotional response to the subject he was painting. He dreamed of an art of balance, purity and serenity, the outer and inner of fusion and harmony and pictorial organization. To him there was no conflict between what he viewed outwardly and his inner spiritual experience. His themes were devoted to women, interiors, and flowers, and by 1907 he had reached a balance in his work. His paintings were pictorially correct , energetic, and yet full of inner peace. He says he cannot copy nature as it is seen, but must form a painting of spiritual living harmony. The work of his mind .His objects empty spaces, proportions, various elements expression of feeling, are all arranged in a decorative manner and all must play a part in the final composition.

The influence of Travel, place and light in the form of colour

Artists moved from Paristo the south of France, staying in Fishing villages, such as St. Tropaez, where Matisse stayed with Paul Signac in 1904,and Collieure, where Matisse and Derain went in 1905, looking for a greater purity of natural sensation. They wanted to find a special kind of chromatic energy in nature. They wanted to concentrate the whole psyche on canvas in colour. The liberation of colour between 1905 and 7 was mostly due to Matisse in his images of the Mediterranean. His pink skyes and awnings, lion coloured headlands and red masts. He also travelled to Tahiti and Morocco and London, keeping abreast of the currant art scene and the influence of new landscapes and peoples. His paintings were being exhibited over Europe, Britain and in America.

The changes in Matisse’s art , style and colour.

Figure la moulade

Painting of a seascape and beach called La Moulade, near Collioure. Matisse did this painting in situ. He liked to paint in colours in the mornings, working quickly on a panel he carried in his paint box. He found this the quickest and best dictation of nature. He made many pencil scetches and small oils in Collieure, using these later on to creat large scale compositions. The brushwork in this painting attests the quickness with which it was made. Ribbons of paint alternate with zig-zag strokes, noting the shifts in geograph and capturing the light, and dark areas of the scene. He has taken care to note the colour changes in the water, from purples, to turquoise and greens.

This painting was done during his Fauve period, and is completely awash with colour and spontinaety .

Le Luxe ll 1907-8 oil.

This is the earliest painting of Matisse where he shows his sensitivity of line and constructive decorative element, and where he fully realises his unique control of broad colours. He and Picasso were both working on life sized figure subjects at this time. They were both aware of Cezannes figure paintings and may have been aware of each others works.

1. La Capeline de paille d’lItalie 1922-3 oil

Matisse’s art was now becoming much more accomplished and this is a very powerful painting indeed. The woman sitting within the elaborate designs of tablecloth and wallpaper. The electric knowing blue of her hat and face encompassed by two roses, with vibrant brushstrokes and yet serene and peaceful as though the model were in a reverie and not wanting to be disturbed. He was now filling his paintings with design and colour, making the whole painting as a rich tapestry.

Matisse as an artist

Matisse was utterly self sufficient in his beliefs as an artist. He was 45 when the war broke out in 1914and was too old to fight. He moved to the Cote d’Azure, his paintings having become even more abstract. He needed to remain in the same state of mind for several days in order to do his painting. He found an apartment in the Hotel Regina and painted what was about him; the wrought iron balcony, the door, the shutters and the Mediterranean. He said he “ wanted his art to have the effect of a good armchair on a tired businessman.”.[1] Matisse knew his art audience was the educated bourgeois. His purpose was to render his emotion,. He was putting his state of soul self , the objects around him and his relations into his paintings. Matisse was a grand Bourgeois. His compositions carried an air of formal grandeur, a declamation of high tradition of French art. At this time, Russia was in close contact with the rest of Europe and the impact of Impressionism, Fauvism, Cubism and Futurism had been felt and absorbed there. Wealthy Bourgeois collectors Sergey Shchukin and Ivan Morizov collected Matisse.

Later years.

When Matisse was bedridden after an operation in his 70s, he changed his method of work. He had assistants paint paper with brilliantly coloured hues in gauche, and these he cut out into shapes and pasted onto paper. He called them decoupages or cut outs. He said that cutting into paper reminded him of sculpture. He talked about the beneficial radiation of colour, its power to heal, and would prop his paintings around the bed of a sick friend. His cut outs radiated such intense colour, the cobalt blues, fuchias, oranges, velvety blacks and high yellows. Matisse wanted to fix a hierarchy of all his sensations. Through control he wanted to fix and articulate the nuances of feeling. The process of cutting was very decisive. When most artists would be dead or repeating themselves, Matisse was re inventing art at the age of 74 . His cut outs were the most advanced form of art in Europe. Their gestures were whole and complete. Gestures others aspired to but could not reach.

To reiterate, Matisse had inherited the symbolic traditions of Christianity and Islam and with his memories of his Tahiti visit in 1930, Matisse uses the bright assure of the sea, the repetition of pattern of Arabic tile work. To form Large Composition With Masks 1953. . No other artist, except perhaps Picasso could have steeped such an image in such intense physical sensation of memories.

Bibliography

Hughes, Robert. Shock of the New, Thames and Hudson, 1980

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[1] Hughes, Robert. Shock of the New, 1980, p.141

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