“When I put a green, it is not grass. When I put a blue, it is not the sky.”
Movements: Post-Impressionism, FAUVISM
Training: Academie Julian student of Bouguereau & Moreau
( lawyer, first started to paint in 1889, went to academie 1891)
Influences: Cezanne, African & Oceanic Art, Gaugin, Van Gogh, Seurat, J.M.W. Turner.
Key Works: Paris 1901-17:
*Luxe, Calme et Volupte (Luxury, Calm & Voluptuousness), 1904.
*Femme au Chapeau (Woman with a Hat), 1905.
*Joy of Life, 1906.
*Blue Nude (souvenir de Biskra), 1907. [orig. title Tableau III, 3rd in series he
considered “major, imaginative works”, incl. Lux, Calme... & Joy of Life]
*Red Room (Harmony in Red), 1908.
*The Dance, 1909.
*Luxe, Calme et Volupte (Luxury, Calm & Voluptuousness), 1904.
*Femme au Chapeau (Woman with a Hat), 1905.
*Joy of Life, 1906.
*Blue Nude (souvenir de Biskra), 1907. [orig. title Tableau III, 3rd in series he
considered “major, imaginative works”, incl. Lux, Calme... & Joy of Life]
*Red Room (Harmony in Red), 1908.
*The Dance, 1909.
1917: Matisse relocated to the French Riviera
1925 awarded Legion d'Honneur
*The Dance II, large mural for the Barnes Foundation, 1932.
Book Illustrations for James Joyce’s Ullysses, published 1935.
Blue Nude (left): was reviled by critics in Paris, and at the Chicago stop of the Armory Show (1913), it was burned in effigy.
1925 awarded Legion d'Honneur
*The Dance II, large mural for the Barnes Foundation, 1932.
Book Illustrations for James Joyce’s Ullysses, published 1935.
Blue Nude (left): was reviled by critics in Paris, and at the Chicago stop of the Armory Show (1913), it was burned in effigy.
Late Career...
Jazz, 1947.
*Chapelle du Rosaire in Vence (the Matisse Chapel), 1951.
*Blue Nude, 1952.
The Snail, 1953.
Sculpture: The Back I 1908-9, The Back II 1913, The Back III 1916, The Back IV 1931.
Patrons: Sergei Shchukin, Gertrude Stein, Michael & Sarah Stein, Etta Cone,
Claribel Cone, Ivan Morozov, Albert C. Barnes
Jazz, 1947.
*Chapelle du Rosaire in Vence (the Matisse Chapel), 1951.
*Blue Nude, 1952.
The Snail, 1953.
Sculpture: The Back I 1908-9, The Back II 1913, The Back III 1916, The Back IV 1931.
Patrons: Sergei Shchukin, Gertrude Stein, Michael & Sarah Stein, Etta Cone,
Claribel Cone, Ivan Morozov, Albert C. Barnes
The Fauves: Paris 1904-1908
Key Figures: Henri Matisse (1869-1954), Andre Derain (1880-1954),
also: Maurice Vlamink (1876-1958), Raoul Dufy (1877-1953), Georges Ruoault (1871-1958), Georges Braque (briefly)
& often included American (Alfred H Maurer (1868-1932)
Introduced: at the Salon d'Automne 1905 , Paris
Name: art critic Louis Vauxcelles coined the term “fauve” (wild beast)
per Gardner: Fauves pursued an art that was direct and anti-theoretical and also used intense, emotionally charged color juxtapositions. The Fauves wished to liberate color from its descriptive function and to use it for both expressive and structural ends.
Characteristics:
Influences:
1906 Ambrose Vollard commissioned Derain to create a series of paintings of London. (The Pool of London or The London Bridge, 1906)
Legacy: Fauve paintings had an immense global impact, particularly through exhibitions in years leading up to WWI. Especially influenced the German Expressionists.
See further:
NGA: Matisse and the Fauves _ very good, concise & visual summary
African Influences in Modern Art (this will help w/several movements!)
Fauvism slide show
Expressionism through Cubism slide show
Primitivism and the Fauves - more in-depth, only if you have a weak moment
also: Maurice Vlamink (1876-1958), Raoul Dufy (1877-1953), Georges Ruoault (1871-1958), Georges Braque (briefly)
& often included American (Alfred H Maurer (1868-1932)
Introduced: at the Salon d'Automne 1905 , Paris
Name: art critic Louis Vauxcelles coined the term “fauve” (wild beast)
per Gardner: Fauves pursued an art that was direct and anti-theoretical and also used intense, emotionally charged color juxtapositions. The Fauves wished to liberate color from its descriptive function and to use it for both expressive and structural ends.
Characteristics:
- intense, bright, arbitrary, unnaturalistic colors
- distorted forms and perspective
- vigorous brushstrokes
- flat, linear patterns
- bare canvas often part of overall design
Influences:
- Retrospective exhibits of the work of Van Gogh, Gaugin and Cezanne 1901-06.
- Paul Signac, Seurat and others experimenting with color theory
- Non-European tribal arts exhibited in Paris at the turn of the cent. (Matisse began collecting African art before 1906)
- Gustave Moreau: professor at Ecole des Beaux-Arts & symbolist painter, had taught Matisse, Rouault, Marquet, Camoin, & Gaugin during the 1890s & is considered a philosophical spark. He championed broad mindedness & the expressive potency of pure color.(Freeman, Fauve Landscape)
1906 Ambrose Vollard commissioned Derain to create a series of paintings of London. (The Pool of London or The London Bridge, 1906)
Legacy: Fauve paintings had an immense global impact, particularly through exhibitions in years leading up to WWI. Especially influenced the German Expressionists.
See further:
NGA: Matisse and the Fauves _ very good, concise & visual summary
African Influences in Modern Art (this will help w/several movements!)
Fauvism slide show
Expressionism through Cubism slide show
Primitivism and the Fauves - more in-depth, only if you have a weak moment
Additional Notes:
Paul Gaugin's influence:
Paul Gaugin's influence:
- symbolic color
- Gaugin proposed that color had a symbolic vocabulary which could be used to visually translate a range of emotions
- “primitive” subject matter from Tahiti, and his life style
- compression of depth of field
Vincent Van Gogh's influence:
- use of unnatural, arbitrary color to express emotion
- angular heavy line
- compression of 3D space into 2D pictorial elements (like brushstroke and pattern);
- stylized distortions and exaggerations of reality
George Seurat's influence:
- Divisionism aka Chromoluminarism: painting defined by the separation of colors into individual dots or patches which interacted optically. George Seurat founded the style/technique c. 1884, drawing on his understanding of scientific theories of Chevreul, Rood and Blanc of color and light.
- divisionism vs. pointillism: pointillism involves the dots of pigment, but does not necessarily involve the separation of color.
Henri Matisse, Woman with a Hat (Femme au chapeau),1905, o/c, 80.65 x 59.69 cm (31 3.4 x 23 1/2 in), SFMOMA.
- First exhibited at the 1905 Salon d’Automne in Paris
- controversy over this portrait led to the christening of the first modern art movement of the twentieth century: Fauvism.
- portrait of the artist’s wife Amelie
- marked a stylistic change from the regulated brushstrokes of his earlier work to a more expressive individual style.
- His use of non-naturalistic colors and loose brushwork, which contributed to a sketchy or “unfinished” quality, seemed shocking at the time
- The vibrant hues are purely expressive
- According to Clark, the enormous hat would have been the height of fashion and a status symbol; however it's is far more fashionable than her status. Amelie was a millner (hat-maker) and certainly would have made the hat. Clark sees the hat as representing Amelie and their livelihood, as she bears the burden of supporting their family w/her work
- resembles a society portrait in format/pose, and her fashionable dress, guarded, distant, almost distainful gaze; however it is nothing like a fashionable society portrait. His color choices and sketchy brushwork would have been a snub to bourgeouis taste.
- Clark suggests Matisse may have painted Amelie as a “painted lady” (nonsense)
- purchased by the ex-pat Stein family (Michael, Sarah, Leo and Gertrude). Although Leo described it as “the nastiest smear of paint I had ever seen”, the Steins recognized its importance & began long-lasting patronage of the artist.
See further:
see SFMOMA re: Femme au Chapeau
T J Clark: Madame Matisse’s Hat: On Matisse
Spurling (biographer of Matisse) in Smithsonian Magazine, Matisse & his Models
Cezanne and Beyond: Cezanne’s world of Influence, art review