Tuesday, November 27, 2007

Henri Matisse

Henri Matisse, born in 1869, began his working life doing administrative tasks for a court. As a gift, his mother gave him his first art supplies and he fell in love with painting.

He studied art in Paris where he painted mostly landscapes and still lifes. He was successful at this and the state even bought five of his paintings. In 1898, he discovered impressionism. A friend and fellow painter, John Peter Russell introduced him to the work of the impressionists including van Gogh who was still unknown and Gauguin. Matisse’s style changed completely following this discovery and color took center-stage in his paintings.

This love of color evolved into Fauvism, in which natural scenes are portrayed in unnatural, usually extremely bright, colors.

By the end of his life Matisse was thoroughly interested in patterns and from this interest came his
collages. Made from boldly hand-painted paper cut into shapes, Matisse’s collages were usually large works of simplicity. He create a book, Jazz, illustrated with these collages.



Shown below are two paintings by Matisse, Two Figures Reclining in a Landscape and The Red Madrass Headress. Notice the difference in style and color use.


EDITED TO ADD: Create Your Own Matisse Collage

Return to main page.

NaNoWriMo Word Count:


41902 / 50000 words. 84% done!
Yes: still behind but...
I FINISHED MY NOVEL!!!!!!

17 comments:

A COLLAGE A DAY said...

one of my favorite artist.
woman in romanian blouse is my favorite

r.

Jessica said...

Thanks for commenting! Yes, Matisse is great. I love the colors in the painting you mention. And the simplicity of her face.

Anonymous said...

i tried to find one of matisse's art works called small romainan blause with foliage b/c im doing for a report but couldnt find it on any sites do you have any info about it

Jessica said...

I believe I know which painting you're referring to but you haven't given me a lot of guidance as to what your looking for, how detailed this paper must be, or even what grade you are in. That being said, here are links to a few interesting articles I was able to scrounge up online.

About an exhibition about the textiles Matisse used for inspiration:
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/24/arts/design/24smit.html

Gives some idea of why Matisse chose to paint a Romanian blouse and places the painting into context:
http://www.blouseroumaine.com/aboutthebook_mat_p1.html

If you have access to JSTOR or another scholarly research database you should be able to find some good resourses just be searching "Romanian Blouse Matisse." It is always best to use the most general search terms when starting out. I noticed that typing in "Romanian Blouse with Foliage" did not yeild any useful results. I wish you the best of luck with your paper.

Anonymous said...

This information is very useful for my Coursework.
Thanks
xx

Charlie said...

This is really helpful for my art coursework! It has a lot of information about him on it.

Anonymous said...

I was so glad when I found this website, I had some art homework that needed doing about that needed doing for the next day (5 facts on Henri Matisse.) I was so glad when I found this website, I had been on wikipedia and it was basically just gobbledy - gook! It is really easy to understand and educational, I love Henri Matisse, his work is really inspirational and colourful. Love, Amy Munslow (age 11.) xx

Anonymous said...

Sorry to say this but your information about the gift is wrong. He was bed ridden and his mother gave him the paints as something to do. PS I am making a blog so I am not anonymous!
Love BungeemonkeyMad!

Anonymous said...

This information helping me a lot it will help a lot i have to do a report on this and this helped me a lot! NOT!!!!

Anonymous said...

if you like this stuff you are a nerd LLLLLLLLOOOOOOOOOOOLLLLLLLLLL

Anonymous said...

colourful oh yeah all my luv lord defendor
ps suport potter and kill volie

Anonymous said...

justin bieber is my best friend and rebeca black is my mother hellz ya luzs u soo freakin much

zoe from la hunz said...

i like these luv zoe xx :)

Anonymous said...

was it henri matisse wh started/invent the style of fauvism?

Anonymous said...

Thank You This Really Helped Me With My Homework On Henri Matisse And Lucian Freud! This Website Is Great! And Easy To Read. Some Biography Pages, Are Not Helpful As There Hard To Read And Not Written In A Way That People Can Understand. Thank For The Help. Angel xx

Anonymous said...

I like the green line the best :)

Tikisha said...

Thanks, this was helpfull! Keep it up! :D