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Matisse
ONE
OF THE GREAT PIONEERING MASTERS OF TWENT1ETH-
centurv art, Henri Matisse was an extremely versatile
and productive artist. Although he was an outstanding
sculptor and draftsman, he is —most widely known and
loved for his paintings. And his paintings vibrant, colorful, and
—
diverse are the focus of this book.
Matisse's intended career was the law. But in 1890, while recov-
ering from an illness, he took up painting as a diversion, and, against
his parents' wishes, never went back to the law. He came to Paris
to pursue his art studies in the fall of 1891, at the age of twenty-
two. When he died, in 1954 at the age of eightv-five, he had cre-
ated a bodv of work that has established him as one of the two
foremost artists of the modern period, the other being Picasso.
The inventive genius ofMatisse could not be confined within the
limits of any one school of art. He studied the old masters; he
explored Impressionism and Post-Impressionism; he was a leader
—
ofthe Fames (literallv "Wild Beasts" so named because of their
shockinglv vivid use of color); he ventured into various modes of
expressive abstraction. The opening years ofthe centurv were years
of struggle for Matisse, but bv 1909 he was world famous. His
renown and influence grew as he continued to produce, in addition
to work in such othermediums as sculpture, a wide range ofpaintings.
—
All of these from delicate, int—imate still lifes and portraits to
monumental figure compositions were marked bv his delight in
vivid, pure color, bold pattern, and striking ornament.
John Jacobus, the Leon E. Williams Professor of Art at Dart-
mouth College, tells the fascinating storv of Matisse's life, explor-
ing the relation ofhis work to the art ofthe past and showing how
it contributed to the art of today In this volume's forty stunning
colorplates the artist's most important paintings are reproduced,
and each is accompanied by a detailed commentary on the page
facing the illustration.
/05 illustrations, including 40 plates in full color
J
BOSTON
PUBLIC
LIBRARY
MATISSE
1. DANCE. 1909. Oil on canvas, 8' 6 5/8" x 12' 9 5/8*. Museum of Modern Art, New York City. Gift of
Governor Nelson A. Rockefeller in honor ofAlfred H. Barr, Jr.
HENRI
MATISSE
JOHN JACOBUS
Professor ofArt, Dartmouth College
HARRY ABRAMS, NEW YORK
N. INC., Publishers,
BRIGHTON
CONTENTS
HEXRI MATISSE
by John Jacobus
COLORPLATES
WOMAN READING (LA LISEUSE) 49
1
2 MALE MODEL (L'HOMME NU, "LE SERF") 51
3 THE PATH IN THE BOIS DE BOULOGNE (SENTIER, BOIS DE BOULOGNE) 53
4 THE ATTIC STUDIO (STUDIO UNDER THE EAVES, L'ATELIER SOUS LES TOITS) 55
CARMELINA
5 57
6 LUXE, CALME ET VOLUPTE" 59
1 THE GREEN STRIPE (MADAME MATISSE, PORTRAIT A LA RAIE VERTE) 61
8 OPEN WINDOW, COLLIOURE (LA FENETRE, FENETRE OUVERTE) 63
9 SKETCH FOR JOY OF LIFE (JOIE DE VIVRE) 65
10 LE LUXE I 67
11 LANDSCAPE WITH BROOK (BROOK WITH ALOES) 69
12 HARMONY IN RED (LA DESSERTE ROUGE, HARMONIE ROUGE) 71
DANCE
13 73
14 MUSIC 75
RED STUDIO ATELIER ROUGE, LE PANNEAU ROUGE)
15 (L* 77
16 PINK STUDIO (THE PAINTER'S STUDIO, L'ATELIER ROSE) 79
17 THE PAINTER'S FAMILY 81
18 STILL LIFE WITH AUBERGINES 83
19 MOROCCAN GARDEN (PERVENCHES) 85
20 ZORAH OX THE TERRACE (SUR LA TERRASSE) 87
21 EXTRANCE TO THE KASBAH (LA PORTE DE LA KASBAH) 89
22 MADAME MATISSE 91
COMPOSITIOX THE YELLOW CURTAIN
as 93
:
24 GOLDFISH 95
25 BATHERS BY THE RIVER 97
<26 THE MOROCCANS 99
27 THE PIANO LESSON 101
28 THE PAINTER AND HIS MODEL 103
29 THE ARTIST AND HIS MODEL 105
30 STILL LIFE WITH APPLES ON PINK CLOTH 107
SI INTERIOR AT NICE 1m09
32 DECORATIVE FIGURE (FIGURE DECORATIVE SUR FOND ORNAMENTAL)
YELLOW ODALISQUE
33 113
34 WOMAN WITH A VEIL (PORTRAIT OF MLLE H.D.) US
35 STUDIES FOR DANCE 117
I
36 WINDOW IN TAHITI (PAPEETE, VUE DE LA FENETRE) 119
MUSIC
31 121
38 DOMINICAN CHAPEL OF THE ROSARY, VENCE 123
39 THE SORROWS OF THE KING 125
40 THE SNAIL (L'ESCARGOT) 127
Henri'iJHrfjt*
The world that Henri Matisse left behind at his death on in law, which he had studied in Paris in 1887-88. At first
November 3, 1954, was vastly changed from that which without knowledge of the new tendencies in painting, he
had initially sustained his talent in the Paris ofthe 1890s. sought, though with reluctance, to become a student of
At the time the undisputed art capital of the Western Adolphe Bouguereau, one of the lionized academic
—
world, that city of the Belle £puque would surely strike us luminaries ofthe day only to find himselfdenied official
today as parochial if not provincial. The Parisian art acceptance to the Fcole des Beaux-Arts. Discovered by a
world was still, on the eve of the twentieth century, less hidebound master, the gentle Gustave Moreau, he
inward-oriented, self-contained, and largely unconcerned was invited tojoin that painter's atelier in 1892. Over the
with events elsewhere. There existed numerous coteries, next decade and more, Matisse would very gradually
ranging from traditional to radical, that claimed their discover the new movements in French painting, pro-
various supporters. Yor at least a century Paris had been gressing steadily but with great deliberation, selecting,
an international magnet, a focus drawing artists from all rejecting, and then returning to various new tendencies
over the world, and it was, in fact, destined to play that as he sought to find himself as a painter.
unique role for another quarter century. Center of a
strict and hierarchic academic establishment, the Paris of Throughout his long career, Matisse's art was nourished
the nineteenth century had nonetheless nourished a rapid and replenished by a variety ofnineteenth-century move-
succession ofrevolutionary movements in the visual arts, ments: Neoclassicism, Realism, Impressionism, and
and, in 1900, some of its finest moments had yet to be Post-Impressionism, though not necessarily in that order.
acted out. It was this milieu that Matisse, born in a small As a whole, Matisse's style is inconceivable and inexpli-
town in the north ofFrance on the last day ofthe old year, cable without this tradition, and yet he developed into
1869, entered when he came to Paris as an aspiring art one of the most inventive of twentieth-century masters,
student in the autumn of 1891, in his twenty-second year. one ofthe few painters ofthe first halfofthe century \\ho
He was a late starter, having previously begun a career continue to have a major influence on the younger paint-
ers of today. Matisse's artistic roots were pronouncedly program for a new painting. Probably Matisse gained
Parisian, and yet his late works thoroughly transcended as much ifnot more from his study ofOld Masters in the
this stylistic locale. They became a major influence on the Louvre, from his preoccupations with Cezanne, Gauguin,
international art culture of the later twentieth century to and other recent masters, and his personal encounters
a degree that is not remotely equaled by some of the with such older painters as Pissarro, Signac, and Cross.
other masters ofthe School of Paris: painters as different If Fauvism had not existed as a movement around 1905,
as Braque and Bonnard, who, like Matisse, were also it probably would have made very little difference in the
concerned with the sensuous transformation into pigment overall development of Matisse's art. Sadly, most of his
of an optically perceived reality, no matter how different Fauve associates have been gradually eclipsed in reputa-
their individual stylistic affiliations might be. tion over the years, largely because they failed to sustain
In this respect, Matisse's art moves beyond the re- much of their initial promise. Some, it is true, were
stricted ambiance of such close personal friends as the hardly more than belated Impressionists, but others, like
painters Marquet, Camoin, and Bonnard, men whose art Derain, were painters of considerable talent and in-
was primarily directed toward the winding up and com- telligence who, in later career, were tempted into a tradi-
pletion of a particular vision inherited from the past. In tionalism that lacked the mark ofindividuality and adven-
the larger sense, Matisse's career instead must be seen as ture found in the work of Matisse.
parallel to the quests of those like his non-Parisian con- Matisse's nominal rival through most ofhis career was
temporaries, notably Kandinsky and Mondrian. Both of
these artists had started at roughly the same point in
time and style, although in different national traditions.
More swiftly than Matisse, they transcended the mate-
rialistic realism of the late nineteenth century, and, in a
political sense, went further into the worlds of abstract
and nonobjective painting. With Matisse, the struggle to
transcend the world of visual perception was much more
time-consuming, painstaking, and even poignant. He
remained to his last days committed to the pictorial
transformation of the world of appearances, creating
works that were untroubled with systematic metaphysical
speculation, works that yet remain pregnant with the
germ ofa new spirit, works that still serve as a key foun-
dation for the new abstraction and even the new realism
of the later twentieth century.
Matisse's nominal historical position was as leader of
the Fauves, just as Picasso and, to an extent, Braque
would be considered the leaders ofthe Cubists. However,
Fauvism was a fragile, short-lived movement, one which
never possessed a formulated program, not even after the
fact. Of all the Fauves, it was only Matisse who went on
to still greater achievements in the direction of intense
though simplified color harmonies and refined draftsman-
ship. His contacts with Albert Marquet, beginning as
early as 1892; with Andre" Derain, in 1899; and subse-
quently with the other painters who were grouped to-
gether in the "cage of wild beasts" at the 1905 Autumn
—
Salon Maurice Vlaminck, Georges Rouault, and others
—
certainly served to reinforce Matisse's own commit-
ment to bold color effects. However, the group seems to
have coalesced more through the coincidences of several 2. SELF-PORTRAIT. 1900. Oil on canvas, 25 1/4x17 S/4*.
personal tastes than out ofthe development ofa common Private collection, Paris
