Exploring the Beauty of 10 Henri Matisse Paintings
The contribution of Henri Matisse to the cultural heritage of the 20th century is hard to be overestimated. This prominent French artist created works in various manners, and some of them are fairly evaluated as some of the most iconic paintings. His style is characterized by radiant colors and bold shapes that have become synonymous with modern art. We are inviting you to look closer at some of his works that have been captivating audiences around the world.
Luxe, Calme et Volupté, 1904
Luxe, Calme et Volupté is a serene landscape that proves Matisse's mastery of color and form. A group of bathers is enjoying an idyllic countryside view and together with it constitutes a calm and harmonious composition, with a soft color palette that gives the work a dreamlike quality. Luxe, Calme et Volupté is an example of Matisse's early works after his study at the Académie Julian and at the Ecole Nationale des Beaux-Arts in Paris and was influenced by the classical approach in art. In fact, Matisse began his artistic career by following the manner of old masters, such as Giotto, Uccello, Donatello, Bruno.
This painting is accomplished in the technique called divisionism, when separate dots of paint are placed on the canvas and look blending from the distance, but Matisse developed his own manner of putting numerous short dashes of paint instead.
Art historians consider that Luxe, Calme et Volupté was an inception of Fauvism, which Matisse became committed to with time. Since 1985, the painting has been exhibited in Musée d'Orsay, Paris.
RIVER IN SPRING by Anna Clark
Open Window, Collioure / Fenêtre ouverte, Collioure, 1905
Open Window, Collioure was created by Matisse during his Fauvist period, which becomes evident by the colors he used: rust and pale red, green, shades of blue. The painting is actually a view out of the window of his apartment in Collioure, on the southern coast of the Mediterranean Sea in France. In the foreground, we can see sailboats on the water painted in light pink, blue and white, and some home plants on the windowsill. The rust red window frame and pots contrast with the tender hues of pink, but general harmony of the image is fascinating. Matisse uses these colors to create a sense of light and peaceful atmosphere in the work, which has a lyrical, poetic quality. Henri Matisse loved painting open windows and returned to this theme from time to time, especially when he lived in Paris, Nice and Etretat. This fabulous painting can be seen in the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC.
OTHER SHORE by Helen Lamb
Joy of Life/ Le bonheur de vivre, 1905
It is remarkable that Matisse himself considered this painting one of his most important artworks, though it was positively accepted by critics only 15 years after it had been created.
When Le bonheur de vivre was exhibited at the Salon des Indépendants in 1906, Matisse was blamed for making a weird and stylistically inconsistent artwork, which signaled the decline of French art. At the same time, the painting became a powerful source of inspiration for many contemporary artists.
Joy of life is a large painting that features a group of nude figures in a simple but appealing landscape of a magical forest around a lake. Light and pale colors and soft flowing lines depict naked human bodies in various positions, with seemingly disparate elements forming the harmony that warms and relaxes us. By the way, the arrangement of the bodies resembles the one in Matisse's masterpiece La Danse.
It may sound tragic but Joy of Life will not last long because cadmium sulfide-based yellow was used to create it. That is why some parts of the painting have been turning white or brown, and this will eventually result in the destruction of the image. Currently, the painting is stored in Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia.
CROWD by Potapova
Woman With a Hat/ La femme au chapeau, 1905
Woman With a Hat is one of Matisse's most famous portraits depicting his wife Amélie in unnaturally radiant colors. A huge surge of criticism swamped Henri Matisse after this painting was seen exhibited. Loose brushstrokes, an illusion of being unfinished and too unnatural shades of blue, green and rust red chosen for the image amazed and maybe even shocked the audience. The whole controversy and discussions contributed to the appearance of the term Fauvism. Thus, it can be concluded that La femme au chapeau marked a shift from divisionism of the first works to fauvism, a more expressive and subjective style. Today, the portrait of Amélie is in the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.
UKRAINIAN GIRL by Nicolas
The Dance/ La Danse, 1909-1910, and The Music/La Musique, 1910
The Dance and the Music are among Matisse's most recognizable works and present a joyous depiction of people hedonistically enjoying themselves by dancing, playing and listening to music and being totally immersed into creativity. Both paintings were commissioned by Russian businessman and art collector Sergei Shchukin , who placed them on the staircase walls of his Moscow mansion, where they hung until the October Revolution of 1917. They are impressively large: La Danse is 260 cm × 391 cm (102.4 in × 153.9 in) and La Musique is 260 cm × 389 cm (100 in × 153 in), and a peculiarity of La Musique is that Matisse used paint at once, without making any preliminary sketches.
These paintings are marvelous examples of Fauvism with its typical palette of blue, green and red, and fluid softness of shapes. The unique composition of the dancing people in La Danse made this work the key milestone in the artist’s career. Now the two masterpieces belong to the collection of the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg.
LIFE AS WE KNOW IT by Helen lamb
The Dessert: Harmony in Red, 1908
The Dessert: Harmony in Red, also known as Red Room, is another stunning example of Fauvist style, where the shades of vibrant red dominate the composition. The use of such a bright color as the main is intentional, as Matisse wanted to create harmony between the objects on the table set for dessert, which would have only simple essential shapes and the interior of the room. A surprising fact is that the painting was supposed to be titled "Harmony in Blue," but Matisse was completely dissatisfied with the blue version, and thus he painted it over with his favorite red.
The choice of this radical color was the reason why Sergei Shchukin, the customer who ordered the painting, rejected it. Nevertheless, the sophisticated composition and offbeat fauvist combination of colors could not leave art lovers indifferent and also influenced later modern artists who worked in the styles of Cubism and Futurism.
The Red Studio/ L'Atelier Rouge 1911
The Red Studio is one of Matisse's most celebrated works thanks to its unusual technique to use only one rich color for the whole composition. The painting invites us to the artist’s atelier, which he had designed and built by himself in 1909. The studio looks cluttered being filled with various objects, all rendered in a striking rusty red color.
However, the daring innovation here is not the main bright color itself but the fact that originally the canvas was entirely covered with pale yellow paint. Then the artist shallowly applied rusty red over the first layer and left thin strips of yellow to serve as lines. The manner of creating L'Atelier Rouge is a point-blank departure from traditional art to the avant-garde movement.
The principle of one color field was the main one in the works of such renowned modern artists as Mark Rothko and Kenneth Noland. At present, L'Atelier Rouge is part of the collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
LOVE PATH by Zorsakh
Icarus, 1946
Icarus is a large-scale artwork with an image of the Greek myth character Icarus, who flew too close to the sun using the wings made by his father with the help of beeswax and feather. The wax melted and Icarus fell down and drowned in the sea. Matisse shows Icarus’s body in a free desperate fall, it is floundering in the sky without any hope for salvation. Icarus was one of 20 plates created in a stencil technique "pochoir” to illustrate Matisse’s book "Jazz". This work was made during a difficult period in Matisse's life, as he was recovering from surgery and grappling with the challenges of old age. However, he uses bold contrasting colors to describe the moving body, and this suggests his continuous fascination with the brightness of the world and his desire to live.
UPSIDE DOWN by Solo
VANITY GIRL by Solo
Blue Nude IV, 1952
The last artwork in this selection is quite unusual and made in the unique style of cut-out, a new technique of visual art invented by Henri Matisse. It was created during the last years of the artist’s life, when he was confined to a wheelchair and no longer able to paint. Instead, he turned to paper cut-outs as his primary medium.
The artwork features a blue figure, sitting quaintly bent, against a white background, with simple, flowing lines of the body. Blue Nude IV is a testament to Matisse's continued experimentation and innovation, even in the face of physical limitations.
Matisse completed his renowned series of blue color artworks, Blue Nudes, at the beginning of the 1950s. Describing them he said that he finally managed to create “an art of balance, of purity and serenity, devoid of troubling or depressing subject matter.”
Henri Matisse was a unique master with his extraordinary manner of combining color, form, and space. From his early Fauvist works to his later cut-out shapes, his art reflects his continued experiments and innovation in the oeuvre. The Red Studio, Luxe, Calme et Volupté, The Dance, Open Window, Collioure, Joy of Life, Woman With a Hat, The Dessert: Harmony in Red, Icarus and Blue Nude IV are just a few examples of his outstanding legacy.
NAKED BEAUTY by Solo L.
