“creativity takes courage”- Henri Matisse

Born: December 31, 1869 - Le Cateau-Cambresis, Picardy, France

• 1890 – suffers from appendicitis and spends the entire year in bed• His mother gives him a box of paints to keep him occupied – this changed his life• at the age of 20 he suddenly found his passion, began taking morning classes while

continuing to work at his law job that he so much hated• moved to Paris and was accepted into the leading art school• paints as a post-impressionist (like Van Gogh, Paul Gauguin)• started a French Art Movement called The Fauves• interested in Cubism, but also rejects it• he is more interested in using colour to express• still life paintings and nudes remain his favourite subject matter• North Africa becomes an important inspiration• acknowledged for his work as a sculptor• 1941 diagnosed with cancer, undergoes operation• uses a wheelchair and eventually bed ridden – develops a new art form – paper cut-outs

Died: November 3, 1954 - Nice, France

Matisse used pure colors and the white of exposed canvas to create a light-filled atmosphere in his Fauve paintings. Rather than using modeling or shading to lend volume and structure to his pictures, Matisse used contrasting areas of pure, unmodulated color. These ideas continued to be important to him throughout his career.

His art was important in endorsing the value of decoration in modern art. However, although he is popularly regarded as a painter devoted to pleasure and contentment, his use of color and pattern is often deliberately disorientating and unsettling.

Key Ideas

Matisse was heavily influenced by art from other cultures. Having seen several exhibitions of Asian art, and having traveled to North Africa, he incorporated some of the decorative qualities of Islamic art, the angularity of African sculpture, and the flatness of Japanese prints into his own style.

The human figure was central to Matisse's work both in sculpture and painting. Its importance for his Fauvist work reflects his feeling that the subject had been neglected in Impressionism, and it continued to be important to him. At times he fragmented the figure harshly, at other times he treated it almost as a curvilinear, decorative element. Some of his work reflects the mood and personality of his models, but more often he used them merely as vehicles for his own feelings, reducing them to ciphers in his monumental designs.

Key Ideas

Matisse once declared that he wanted his art to be one "of balance, of purity and serenity devoid of troubling or depressing subject matter," and this aspiration was an important influence on some, such as Clement Greenberg, who looked to art to provide shelter from the disorientation of the modern world.

Henri Matisse is widely regarded as the greatest colorist of the twentieth century and as a rival to Pablo Picasso in the importance of his innovations.

Henri Matisse The dinner table 1897 oil on canvas 100 x 131 cm (private collection, London)

Henri Matisse Carmelina 1903 oil on canvas 80 x 64 cm (Museum of Fine Arts, Boston)Early Works

Henri Matisse, Luxe, Calme, et Volupte (1904-05)

Henri Matisse, The Woman with a Hat (1905)

Henri Matisse, Joy of Life (Le Bonheur de Vivre) (1905-06)

Henri Matisse, Blue Nude (Souvenir de Biskra) (1907)

Henri Matisse, The Moroccans (1915-16)

Henri Matisse, Bathers by a River (1917)

Henri Matisse, The Dance II (1932)

1. Henri Matisse, The Dance II (1932)

Alvin Langdon Coburn, Henri and Amélie Matisse in front of “Bathers by a River

Muse: Lydia Delectorskaya, looks attentive as Henri Matisse sketches her in 1944

Matisse, Still Life with Blue Tablecloth, 1908-09

Henri Matisse (French, 1869–1954)"The Blue Window".Issy-les-Moulineaux, summer 1913Oil on canvas

Henri Matisse Large Reclining Nude, 1935 oil on canvas. The Baltimore Museum of Art: The Cone Collection formed by Dr. Claribel Cone and Miss Etta Cone of ...