Artwork which imitates the style of Henri Matisse

Done by Matt Schafer

Matisse was an incredibly prolific and accomplished artist whose mastery spanned many different forms and mediums, so choosing a style to imitate was a simple matter.  For me, his use of color and an understanding of light and shadow led to a digital piece of a simple white cup.  True to Matisse himself, I drew upon the different colors welling up from the play of orange and pink light, versus an inky blue and purple shadow.  Studying Matisse has led to a multitude of personal breakthroughs in the business of the unique and powerful splashes of color found in all areas of life, and I couldn’t be happier with the chosen topic.








Done by Brian Rohrmann

After completing this artist study project for Henri Matisse, I came to realize that he style was quite abstract in terms of brush stroke and the application of medium in many of his works.  I chose to replicate a landscape painting in his style due to the fact that I enjoy the outdoors just as Matisse did while studying under Moreau.  The color palette I chose for this specific piece is both vibrant at times and very saturated in the colors.  The abstract shapes which have been created through the creation of the landscape emanate Matisse's style of art work.  Through this study of Matisse, I have come to love a more vibrant and playful color palette now.

Done by Erlson Neba

I was really inspired by Matisse's use of color during the early 1900's.  Matisse was a strong believer in color. He really supported the use of colors straight out of the tube. So I decided to create a portrait of a man using mostly colors straight out of the tube. I was inspired specifically by Matisse's Portrait of Madame Matisse, especially his use of color to create a sense of three dimensionality. In this painting, I tried using the juxtaposition between colors by putting warm and cool colors next to each other. Just as seen in The Portrait of Madame Matisse, I inserted a green stripe which separates the warm and cool skin tones of the man's face to create a better sense of three dimensionality. The background colors are mostly a juxtaposition of complimentary colors which create a better sense of contrast. 

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/>.

Artistic Training

            Henri Matisse first sparked an artistic interest in 1889 when his mother purchased him an art set while he was in the recovery stages of an appendicitis attack.  Matisse stated that he discovered “a sense of paradise” within the art in which he was creating.  Just three years later, Matisse moved to Paris to study art and follow the traditional nineteenth-century academic path.  He first studied at the Académie Julian under the conservative William-Adolphe Bouguereau, and then at the École des Beaux-Arts under the Symbolist painter Gustave Moreau.  At the start of his painting journey, Matisse first experimented with painting still – lifes and landscapes in a traditional manner.  Having the chance to learn from some of the masters of the trade during this time period, such as Jean – Baptiste – Simeon Chardin, Nicolas Poussin, Edouard Manet, and Atoine Watteau.  Matisse’s early work, at times, replicated that of Edouard Manet and Paul Cezanne. 

  

In 1892, Henri Matisse joined French painter, Gustave Moreau, which was around the same time when he went into an intense experiment of color.  Moreau would tell his students, “Colors must be thought, dreamed, and imagined.”  Moreau’s “symbolist attitude” towards painting allowed for Matisse to incorporate intense, expressive color into his pieces. 

            In 1895, Henri Matisse was accepted into some of the most prestigious art schools in France known as the Ecole des Beaux Arts It became evident that Matisse was becoming quite attached to Moreau as a mentor due to the valuable lessons he was learning under the teachings of him.  Moreau encouraged his students to look to nature for inspiration and draw outdoors to experience the ever-changing atmosphere.  Also, he never interfered with the personal individuality of each student as well as his/her own learning curve.  Just as teachers today tell their students, Moreau told his students to stay up to date with the art around them and go visit museums to indulge their minds into inspirational artwork on which they may borrow ideas and techniques from.  He continued his color studies with Moreau until 1895, when Moreau sadly passed away.  Matisse frantically searched high and low for a new mentor due to the fact that his own life was quite chaotic at the time due to family and financial troubles. 

           

Following these tough times with his family and financial status, Henri Matisse, took a visit to the coast of a France province, Brittany, to visit with the Australian Impressionist, John Peter Russell.  Russell would soon introduce Matisse into the Impressionistic work of Vincent Van Gogh. Henri Matisse realized the possibilities of art within this specific sector and changed his entire creative plan.  Russell became Matisse’s teacher and introduced him and taught him the color theory.  These teachings lead Matisse down a roadway of opportunity and exploration.

Written By: Brian Rohrmann

Footnote Citations: 

Advameg Inc., "Encyclopedia of World Biography." 

Accessed December 4, 2011. http://www.notablebiographies.com/Ma-

Mo/Matisse-Henri.html 

The Art Story Foundation, "Artist - Henri Matisse." 

Accessed December 4, 2011. http://www.theartstory.org/

artist-matisse-henri.htm.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, "Henri Matisse: Thematic Essay."

 Accessed December 4, 2011. http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/

mati/hd_mati.htm.

General Overview/ Philosophy

[1869 - 1954]

            It’s a difficult prospect to imagine an artistic figure more polarizing in his time than Henri Matisse.  Indeed, for every favorable appraisal this painter received, there was a blast of staunch criticism lurking in its wake.  The French public for whom he produced took every opportunity to debate and discuss, with wildly varying opinion, even his most humble offerings.  Some accused him of bearing too much emotion onto the shoulders of his paintings, while just as many saw his works devoid of feeling and purpose.  Too theoretical, yet too undisciplined, too intellectual yet too instinctive, too methodical yet too sloppy.  About the only thing the art community of the early twentieth century could agree on with complete certainty was that this man; this Matisse, was an artist worth discussing.

            Perhaps it was the juxtaposition of contrasted character that existed between the art and the man, or maybe his wide berth of style variation which denied easy categorization fed the most fuel to the fire.  Regardless of reason, Matisse irked a significant portion of the international art community.  While his many styles and evasive techniques marked him as another crazy artiste, his consummate desire was to be perceived as a typical bourgeoisie gentleman. As Jack Flam writes in his Matisse retrospective, “‘Do tell the American people I am a normal man,’ he urged Clara MacChesney in 1912; ‘that I am a devoted husband and father, that I have three fine children, that I go to the theater, ride horseback, have a comfortable home, a fine garden that I love, flowers, etc., just like a normal man’ ” Many expounded on this behavior as grounds to claim hypocrisy in his methodology and artistic statements.  Matisse was a man of both strict discipline and whimsical artistic potential.  You’ll find that this skeeved an incredible amount of people.

            The key to Matisse’s success lies squarely in his seemingly contradictory nature.  Matisse subscribed to the notion that there was more than one way to perceived reality, and that different realities were more suited to different kinds of medium and style.  It was always Matisse’s sincerest insistence that he painted what he saw, regardless of the philosophy or school of thought the painting subscribed to.  It is this fluid and wide-spanning view of the possibilities of art that had – and has – kept the work of Matisse from becoming stale and forgotten.

              Written by: Matt Schafer

              Footnote Citation:

              Jack Flam, Matisse: A Retrospective,
             (New York: Hugh Lauter Levin Associates, Inc., 1988), 21-26.