The influential and revolutionary French artist, Henri Matisse was born in a weaver’s family on 31st December 1869 in France. His career of 60 years mostly spanned the first half of 20th century. He is best known for his expressive color choice and his fauvist style.
Matisse had chosen traditional subjects like portraits, nudes, interior views, landscape, still life, etc (Editors). He had a brilliant sense of color and the way he expressed his emotion in his paintings was distinct and unique. In the year 1891, he moved to Paris for a formal artistic training and took instructions from famous schools such as the École des Beaux-Arts (Editors). He painted in a style known as Fauvism and also used the emotional power of sinuous lines, bright colors with strong brushwork. The bright colors example can be seen in one of his famous work known as The Joy of Life. It was a landscape that composes of female nudes. Matisse was also involved in creating drawings and sculptures that were mostly related to his paintings.
Matisse’s early work was inspired by Édouard Manet (1832–1883) and Paul Cézanne(1839–1906). On the way to his friend, Paul Signac in 1904, Matisse discovered the light of southern France which was very bright. This view influenced his work and contributed to a change into a brighter palette (Dabrowski). He was also influenced to use contemporary colors in a Pointillist technique of small color dots. These changes in his work resulted in the creation of Neo-Impressionist masterpiece Luxe, calme et volupté.
Matisse created colored canvases to which the color was applied in a variety of brushwork that ranges from thick impasto to flat areas of pure pigment (Dabrowski). He found his own style and travelled to different countries like Italy, Spain, North Africa and Germany for more inspiration. For a decade from 1910 to 1920, he continued using saturated colors, strong outlines and a flat pictorial space. His work, Piano Lesson was created using the structures and Cubism geometry.
Matisse also experimented on drawing as it helped him to work out the new and latest ideas in his work. In the 1930s, he created a series of drawings based on the artist and his model and his drawings became bolder in the next 10 years. He used his creativity in graphic arts as well.
References
Editors, B. (2016). Henri Matisse Biography. Biography.com. Retrieved 19 April 2016, from
http://www.biography.com/people/henri-matisse-9402564#breakthrough-period
Dabrowski, M. (2004). Henri Matisse (1869–1954) | Essay | Heilbrunn Timeline of Art
History | The Metropolitan Museum of Art. The Met’s Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. Retrieved 19 April 2016, from http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/mati/hd_mati.htm
