The most important WORKS of Henri MATISSE

Passion, sensuality and balance are some of the basic characteristics of the work by Henri Matisse One of the great names of the artistic avant-garde from the beginning of the 20th century for his mastery of color and his elegant line both in paintings, engravings and drawings. Thus, Matisse is considered one of the main representatives of Fauvism, being a complete artist at the explore all kinds of artistic techniques, from painting to sculpture, ceramics, collage or art graphic.

In this new lesson from a TEACHER we bring you closer to life and most important Matisse works, the artist of balance, purity and serenity.

Index

1. Brief biography of Henri Matisse
2. Canal du Midi, one of Matisse's most outstanding works (1898)
3. Woman with a Hat (1905)
4. The joy of living (1905/1906)
5. The dance (1909/1910)
6. Blue nudes (1952)

Matisse (1869–1954) was born into a family of weavers in the town of Bohain-en-Vermandois, in the plains of northeastern France. An area where wool mills and luxury fabric manufacturing were the main industry. This experience will help you develop

His career as an artist began after graduating in Law in Paris and leaving the law firm where he worked to begin studying painting in 1889. In 1893 he continued his training with the Symbolist painter Gustave Moreau at the École des Beaux-Arts. In this first moment he combines the influences of Moreau, the Louvre masters and the Impressionists.

But with the beginning of the century and artistic vanguards, he begins to associate with artists like André Derain, Maurice Vlaminck and falls under the influence of post-impressionist painters like Paul Signac, Paul cezanne, Paul Gauguin and Vincent van Gogh. In those years he evolved towards a subjective expression of reality in which color no longer had a descriptive function, but rather an emotional or image of the author's emotions.

At the exhibition Salon d’Automne of 1905 in which he participates, the critic Louis Vauxcelles called them fauves or savages, a name that would come to name the entire movement. The use of intense and contrasting colors and the influence of African sculpture are key to Fauvism, Matisse adding a more sensual and ornamental look.

Canal du Midi It is part of a series of pictures painted by Matisse in the surroundings of Toulouse in the winter of 1898 and 1899 after returning from the honeymoon trip to London and living a season in Corsica. The landscapes of Toulouse won him over with light and color, but without trying to be naturalistic and using color as something subjective. Thus, all the works of these early years are usually designated as protofauves by the chromatic intensity.

Canal du Midi is characterized by that non-naturalistic use of color, with blues, oranges, yellows and reds that represent the sunset, contrasting with the whites and grays of clouds, but without superimposing them. The fluid and vigorous brushstroke conveys the energy and passion of Matisse painting. The painting belongs to the Carmen Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection on deposit at the Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza.

This is another of Matisse's most important works.Woman with hat it's a portrait of Amélie, Matisse's wife, and exhibited along with other works in the aforementioned exhibition Autumn Lounge in which they first referred to the movement as fauve.

Like the rest of the exhibition, Woman with hat It was also rejected by critics as an unfinished work, with very loose brushstrokes and arbitrary colors, not at all real. This work by Matisse thus became new type of unrealistic portrait and in which the subjective vision and full of emotions and feelings of the painter predominate.

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The rejection of the exhibition at the Autumn Salon in 1905 did not deter Matisse and he decided to further reaffirm his ascription to Fauvism with this monumental oil painting, The joy of living.

This is a work at the Matisse stands out from scale and proportions Classical and nude figures and in sensual and erotic postures appear in different sizes, without keeping proportions and offering a composition of independent scenes.

The color is radiant and intense and responds to the emotional expression, reinforcing that unreal atmosphere of Arcadia or bucolic paradise of forests and meadows. The work The joy of living is considered one of the fauve works par excellence.

The sensuality, the vitality and the harmony are constant in Matisse's work, this painting being Dancea high point in the painter's career. A work that was commissioned for the Russian businessman and art collector Sergei Shchukin and in which a series of dancers who dance in a circle, turning and transmitting that sensation of movement and harmony of the dance.

A work full of expression and strength that Matisse achieved with few colors, using a palette of dark tones, and with the line as the main resource, instead of using lights and shadows, which is a real achievement.

In 1941 Matisse fell ill with stomach cancer, but he did not leave his creative activity, staying in the line of exoticism and luxury that he will begin with his series of Odalisquesfrom the 1920s and 1930s. In these years of illness he dedicated himself to making collages based on wallpaper clippings.

With this new technique of cut-out Matisse made compositions such as Blue nudes, a series of four nudes.

If you want to read more articles similar to Matisse - main works, we recommend that you enter our category of Story.

• AAVV. (2020). Matisse-Basic Art- Spanish. Taschen Benedikt

• Essers, Volkmar. (2012). Matisse. Taschen Benedikt

• Dabrowski, Magdalena. "Henri Matisse (1869–1954)." In Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000–. http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/mati/hd_mati.htm