Early & Late Works of Art/ Artist Style

Along with Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse is regarded as one of the greatest artists of the 20th century. This title is greatly influenced by the fact that Matisse explored a variety of styles throughout his artistic career. Throughout his artistic career, Matisse moved around from styles like impressionism to more abstract styles of painting. During the beginning of his career, Matisse along with other artists like Picasso, Vincent Van Gogh, and Paul Gauguin were looking for new ways to radically change their styles of painting in many different ways. One of these ways was by making color the primary element of his artwork. Later coined as fauvism, Matisse sought in creating a powerful sensation with his art by manipulating the colors of his subject matter rather than just simply representing the subject as it is.  By doing this, Matisse believed that he was using color in a nonconventional way to evoke really powerful emotions which cannot be evoked through regular observation. In other words, Matisse along with other fauvist painters at the time sought to translate "their feelings into color with a rough, almost clumsy style".

            A good example of one of Matisse's Fauvist paintings would be Woman With A Hat. The painting was initially exhibited at the Salon D'Automne in Paris in 1905. At the time, the bright unnatural colors as depicted in the painting shocked the viewers so much that Louis Vauxcelles, a renowned art critic at the time described the Woman With a Hat, along with other fauvist paintings in the exhibition with the phrase "C'est Donatello dans la cage aux fauves!" (Donatello in a cage with wild beasts). And through that phrase, fauvism received its name. Woman With A Hat  comprises solely of a painting of a woman who appears to be wearing a bogus hat along with a sophisticated looking dress. the figure's skin tone contains bright colors including green red and yellow. In order to make the painting look more expressive than the average observational painting, the artist uses very bold brushstrokes which gives the woman's clothes a rough texture.

            Another Good Example of  Matisse's Fauvist paintings would be Portrait of Madamme Matisse (Green Stripe). This painting comprises of a portrait of Matisse's wife, Amélie Noellie Matisse-Parayre. the colors used in this painting are what makes the painting successful. As seen on the painting, the right background is painted with a dull green color while the right side of the face is painted with a bright skin tone. The exact opposite happens on the other side of the painting. While the left background is painted with a bright red and pink color while the left side of the model's face is painted with a dull skin tone. Separating the painting is a green stripe that separates the light values from the darks. The contrast between all these bright and dull colors help give the painting an overall three-dimensional feel. 

           Two featured works of art:

Woman with Hat

Portrait of Madame Matisse

Written By: Erlson Neba

Footnote Citations:

Elderfield, John, and Henri Matisse. Henri Matisse: a Retrospective. New York: Museum of Modern Art, 1992. Print.

"Paintings of Henri Matisse: 1894-1910." Matisse: Life and Painting. Web. 09 Dec. 2011. <http://www.henri-matisse.net/paintingssectionone.html>.

"WebMuseum: Matisse, Henri (-Émile-Benoît)." Ibiblio - The Public's Library and Digital Archive. Web. 09 Dec. 2011. <http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/matisse/>.