Henri Matisse: Goldfish
Henri Emoile Matisse, born in 1869, is regarded as one of the “great formative figures in 20th-century art”, as well as the leader of the Fauve group. Fauvism is defined as “an early-20th-century movement in painting begun by a group of French artists and marked by the use of bold, often distorted forms and vivid colors.” Matisse was associated with this group due to his use of vivid colors, as well as his unusual style of presenting objects. Many critics at this time called him, as well as other artists with similar styles, “a disgrace for art and therefore called them 'The Fauves'. The Fauves means 'Wild Beasts', a name that the artists of the group accepted with pride.” The main goals of the artists in this movement were to break away from the rigid Impressionist movement, and begin using bolder colors, as well as their own interpretations of shapes. The work of Matisse is based on the principals and possibilities of 'leaving out'. The human mind can fill in what is missing in the painting, like dimension, details and plastical forms. The Fauves expressed their feelings of joy for life and joy for art and painting. Fauvism paved the way for future styles of art, and was considered radical in the early 20th century.
Henri Emoile Matisse was born in Le Cateau in northern France on December 31, 1869. The son of a middle class family, his first career was in the law field. However, an appendicitis attack in 1890 rendered him bedridden, and with much time on his hands, he began to study the art of painting. To help alleviate his boredom, his mother bought him a paint box, and thus began his new passion: painting. In 1893, the work of Matisse was noticed by Gustav Moreau, (1826-1898) French painter, who developed a distinctive style in the Symbolist mode. Matisse displayed his work for the first time in 1896 at the ‘Salon de la Societe Nationale’. In 1903, Matisse was exposed to the pointillist paintings of Henri Edmond Cross and Paul Signac. Pointillism was a late 19th-century method of painting, consisting of depositing small dots or strokes of pure color on the canvas. Seen from a distance, these “points” blend and give the effect of a different color and heightened luminosity. The style, a development of impressionist color theories, was originated by the French painters Georges Seurat and Paul Signac.
Henri Matisse was a French Artist during the Cubist and Fauvist period, which influenced his art greatly. Although he was primarily known as a painter, he was also a printmaker, sculptor, and draughtsman. His piece Mademoiselle Yvonne Landsberg resembles that of a print; however, it is in oil painting. Mademoiselle Yvonne Landsberg is believed to have been a piece in which Matisse was experimenting with new ideas and methods, as this painting appears to be very labor intensive. There are multiple parts of the painting where Matisse scraped away layers of paint and leave behind lines that parallel cross-hatching. The aspect of the painting that is different from other cubist pieces of the time are the lines that emanate from the Mlle Landsberg, thought to be a depiction of her movement while the piece was being made.
Pointillism was a major reason in why Seurats painting looks so lifelike. During the painting of La Grande Jatte, Seurat simplified his brushwork to such an extent that his painting seems to be composed of nothing but tiny, more or less circular dots. Seurat’s experiments with color led him to paint in small dots of color which are arranged in such combinations that they seem to vibrate. Individual colors tend to interact with those around them and fuse in the eye of the viewer. This approach is not unlike the dots or pixels in a computer image. If you magnify any computer image sufficently, you will see individual colors that, when set together, produce an image. Seurat was interested in the way colors came about. With the enhancement of the luminousity of colors made possible by the investigation of scientific optics, he saw positive merit in a method in which the movement of the brush no longer demanded the slightest skill: ‘Here the hand is, in effect, useless, deceit impossible; no room for bravura i...
It wasn’t until 1886 when he moved to Paris that he got acquainted with impressionism, which is why he went through a quick adaptation to the style. His progression is quite rapid, thus subsequently making it difficult to relate his paintings together and compare them with other artists’. However he did start using a lighter palette in 1886 compared to his earlier works, and in 1887 he changed to a pointillist technique, and then continued developing his own style.
In the 1880’s the movement known as Impressionism was coming to an end. The eight and last Impressionist exhibition was held in Paris during 1886 (Time). Although Impressionism was coming to an end new forms of art arose to take its place. Some famous artists producing during this time include, Van Gogh, Georges Seurat, and Odilon Redon (Georges). Odilon Redon started his own movement known as Symbolism, which strives to give form to ideas and emotions (Odilon). Another painter responsible for creating a new style is Georges Seurat. Seurat was a French painter who popularized and developed his own style called pointillism.
...ternal reality and given the new engagement of revealing the artist's experience of reality by the colors pure chromatic intensity. (Arnason) Matisse in this painting uses color to show differences among nature and people unlike the paintings prior to him where differences were shown throw chiaroscuro and minute details. Although fauvism was one of the shortest periods in all of art history you can still see an echo of its high key colors for many periods after its ending.
Picasso’s significant painting presents five life size female figures twisting in an ambiguous, tight space, and confronting its viewers in an uncomfortable way. With this new found inspiration upon viewing Picasso’s painting, Matisse is able to go deeper and more expressive into his description of the female nudes without being shallow in Bathers by a River. An intense, competitive partnership developed between Cubism and Fauvism. No matter how much he might have wanted to, Matisse could not ignore Picasso and the advances he was making in the art world. Their heated conflict deeply fueled Modern Art as each artist tried to surpass the other. As with many of Matisse’s Cubist contemporaries, the underlying drawing was of greater significance to his paintings than any brilliant color effects, even though the use of light continued to play a significant part in these 1913-17 works. Matisse found major new ways of applying paint to canvas. He layered, smeared and removed what he had painted earlier on the canvas not by scraping it away with a tool, but by applying fresh paint to cover and remake what was previously there. The raw textures in Bathers by a River energize the serious
During Vincent Van Gogh’s childhood years, and even before he was born, impressionism was the most common form of art. Impressionism was a very limiting type of art, with certain colors and scenes one must paint with. A few artists had grown tired of impressionism, however, and wanted to create their own genre of art. These artists, including Paul Gaugin, Vincent Van Gogh, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, and Paul Cezanne, hoped to better express themselves by painting ...
Henri Matisse was famous for his unique movements and styles of art. He was best known as a Fauve painter, and was a large part of the modern art movement. He contributed to modern art, by keeping up with the artistic movements and trends, but also held on to the classical artistic styles of the past. While his work continued some of the stylitsic qualities of Impressionism and Post-Impressionism, he was interested and involved, mostly, in Fauvism. He, like many other artists of this movement, emphasized strong colors over realistic and basic colors, found in Impressionism. One of his most famous pieces, The Dance (1909-1910) had two versions. The first piece, Dance I, resembled that of more classical styles of art, with its
The neo-expressionist movement in America lasted from the late 70s and came to an end in the early 90s. The movement was a revival of expressionism, a style in which an artist portrays emotional experience into their work (Sandler, 227). It was also a response to the popular art style of the time called minimalism, which involved mostly blank canvases or lines. Neo-expressionism, on the other hand, was raw emotion and chaos. The main figures of the movement were Julian Schnabel, David Salle, and Ada Applebroog. A pioneer of the movement, and also the focus of this essay, is Jean-Michel Basquiat. His art referenced many famous artists and art pieces, from which he found inspiration. This inspiration was one of the features that made the movement
He also visited museums, including the Fourth Impressionist Exhibition and gained inspiration by the sprightly and atmospheric way which impressionists, especially Monet and Pissaro painted. This opened his eyes to develop theories on ways to create emotion and harmony through science and color. He continued to broaden his creativity of natural beauty and daily affairs while spending the summer of 1885 at Grandcamp, in Normandy and the winter working on the island of La Grande Jatte. He used his interpretation of paintings he had studied, along with his love for science and painted in a way that produced an incandescent, gleaming effect through “optical mixing.” To do this he applied tiny precise dots or brush strokes side by side so that they would appear to blend when viewed from a distance: known as Pointillism or Divisionism. A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte embodies Seurat’s ingenuity and originality of how science and art can intertwine, creating a masterful, lively work of art. “Some say they see poetry in my paintings; I see only
The impressionist movement is often considered to mark the beginning of the modern period of art. It was developed in France during the late 19th century. The impressionist movement arose out of dissatisfaction with the classical, dull subjects and clean cut precise techniques of painting. They preferred to paint outdoors concentrating more on landscapes and street scenes, and began to paint ordinary everyday people and liked to show the effects in natural light.
During a visit to Brittany, Matisse discovered Impressionism (Essers 8). The works of Cezanne and Van Gogh influenced him. When he returned, he exhibited his first painting, Dinner Table, in 1897. This was his first painting of impressionistic style. Matisse’s art began to concentrate on landscapes, still life, and domestic interiors. Still life is a theme Henri would follow for the rest of his career.
Fauve’s art were different in each other of their own exclusive ways, but they all have the same origin, different feelings but same structure. They all did different mediums as well; for an example like I said they used art to express music, literature, and an emotional vision of the world from their perspective. Artist like Henri Matisse and André Derain with many more artists’ art was bright colored, exciting, attractive, and vividly expressed within their hands. They used communicative colors like red to show pain and hurt or blood or even the items that within the painting that describes the mood. Or another example could be Henri Matisse 'The Open Window, Collioure', 1905; he used his colors wisely and intensely. Most of the artist used oil, oil on canvas, and paint. Each piece of art work was used to perfection. ...
Claude Monet made the art community address a revolutionary type of art called impressionism. In a style not previously before painted, impressionism captured a scene by using bright colors with lots of light and different shades to create the illusion of a glance. The traditional method of working in a studio was discarded and the impressionist artists carried any needed supplies with them into the countryside and painted the complete work outside. The manufacture of portable tin tubes of oil paints as well as the discovery of ways to produce a wider range of chemical pigments allowed artists to paint in a way unimaginable before this period in time (Stuckey 12). Monet and others, such as Pierre Auguste Renior, Paul Cezanne, Edgar Degas, Berthe Morisot, Edouard Manet, Camille Pissarro, and Alfred Sisley, took this style of art to a new level never seen before.
One of the most prominent Post-Impressionist artists was Vincent Van Gogh. His work is best known for its rough ascetic and bold colors. Van Gogh favored fauvism, which was a movement that implemented vivid expressionistic and non-naturalistic color. Van Gogh’s color was typically saturated and arbitrary. Most of Van Gogh’s paintings show gestural brushwork and examples include: Starry Night and Wheatfield with Cypresses. Also, he often experimented with different perspectives.