10844 AS and A2 content The present study note addresses Matisse’s middle and late painting, his early being treated under Fauvism (Z10710). His work up to 1945 falls within two AS sections, and that Matisse after 1945 within one A2 section. The current specification should be consulted for the details. MIDDLE AND LATE PAINTING Discussion of specific examples may range up to five by years beyond any of the sections’ chronological boundaries. Dr John W Nixon Over five years and up to a maximum of fifteen, penalties are progressively imposed, except where the purpose of discuss- Related Study Notes Henri Matisse (1869–1954), as seen earlier (10710), was ion is not to describe and analyse specific examples but the leader of Fauvism. Roy Donald McMullen: rather to establish general context or significance, when no Fauvism was too undisciplined to last long, and soon chronological restrictions apply. 10060 its adherents were moving, according to their temper- From realism to abstraction aments, towards Expressionism, Cubism, or some Emergence from Fauvism 10710 kind of neo-traditionalism. Matisse had no liking for Matisse’s emergence from Fauvism into his mature painting Fauvism these directions, and if “Fauve” is taken to mean style is marked by a number of major transition works paint- simply a painter with a passion for pure colour, he ed between about 1905 and 1910, among these, The Joy of 10720 can be said to have remained one all his life. He had, Living, 1905–6; Luxury II, 1907–8; Dinner Table, Red Cubist painting in France however, too much rationalism in his outlook not to Version, 1908; Music, 1910; and The Dance, 1910 10740 look for some order in a stylistic situation that threat- (Z10710). ened to become chaotic, and his search for chromatic Northern Expressionist TENSION BETWEEN FLATNESS AND DEPTH equilibrium and linear economy can be followed in a painting 1880–1918 The Painter’s Family, 1911, is another. Here, against heavily series of major works produced between the revel- 10845 patterned wallpaper, fireplace, upholstery and carpet, ation of Fauvism in 1905 and the end of World War I… Picasso, middle and late Fig. 1 The Painter’s Family, 1911; oil on canvas, 143 x 194 cm/ 56.3 painting …[T]he main characteristics of Matisse’s mature x 76.4 in; Leningrad, Hermitage Museum. Reproduced from Louis painting style recur constantly. The forms tend to be Aragon, Henri Matisse, A Novel, 1971; English translation, Collins, 30410 outlined in flowing, heavy contours and to have few London, 1972; vol. 1, ISBN 0-00-211537-9, p. 133. French Impressionist interior details; the colour is laid on in large, thin, painting luminous carefully calculated patches; shadows are Matisse shows his wife Amélie, back left, and three children 30420 practically eliminated; and the depicted space is – Pierre and Jean playing draughts, left foreground, and French Post-Impressionist either extremely shallow or warped into a flatness Marguerite standing stiffly, right foreground. The plainness painting that parallels the plane of the canvas and defies of the boys’ red clothing and Marguerite’s black dress makes 30421 academic rules of perspective and foreshortening. them appear almost as cut-outs against their patterned sur- Paul Cézanne The total effect, although too intense and freehand to roundings. Matisse’s efforts at “warping his depicted space be merely decorative, may recall the patterns of the into flatness”, as McMullen aptly refers to it, is very apparent rugs, textiles, and ceramics of the Islamic world. The both in the draughtboard and in the subdued transition In the text, a Z symbol choice and treatment of subject matter imply optim- between horizontal and vertical surfaces. refers to these Study Notes ism, hedonism, intelligence, a fastidious sensuality, Large Studio and Red Studio, both also painted in 1911, and, in spite of the many studies of both clothed and present more harmonious resolutions between flatness and unclothed women, scarcely a trace of conventional depth, between ‘abstract’ or decorative demands, on the one sentiment. hand, and representational, on the other. The latter work, …He began to winter on the French Riviera, and by suffused in an intense red, delineates the space and its the early 1920s he was mostly a resident of Nice or its furniture by the minimal of means – scratched outlines and environs. His pictures became less daring in concep- Fig. 2 Red Studio, 1911; oil on canvas, 180 x 220 cm/ 70.9 x 86.6 in; tion and less economical in means. Like many of the New York, Museum of Modern Art. Reproduced from Aragon, vol. 2, painters and composers during these years (notably p. 250. Pablo Picasso and Igor Stravinsky), Matisse relaxed into a modernized sort of classicism and into a rather an arrangement of paintings within the painting. Unlike the evident attempt to please an art public that was a bit space as a whole, these paintings – flat already of course – tired of attempts to shock it. retain their own colours. …But there are no signs of flagging creative OTHER CULTURES energy or of sadness in his final achievements; on Islamic art was an acknowledged major influence on Matisse the contrary, these works are among the most daring, and it is worth noting that he visited North Africa in 1906, most accomplished, and most serenely optimistic of 1911 and 1912. Apart from Islamic art itself, the sharpness his entire career. and intensity of the African light and colour had a lasting …the huge coloured-paper cut-outs… made him in impact. Not just how he painted but what he painted was many respects the “youngest” and most revolution- influenced – ‘odalisques’ (harem women) and a variety of ary artist of the early 1950s.1 from Encyclopaedia Britannica 2006 Ultimate Reference Suite DVD 1 Roy Donald McMullen, “Matisse, Henri.” Encyclopaedia Britannica [Accessed March 26, 2007]. 1/2 10844u.doc: first published 2007 CCEA GCE HISTORY OF ART Islamic screens and other furnishings figure prominently in introducing the viewer’s own space into the painting – hangs across, his paintings from about 1921. Matisse, in fact, travelled and disguises, the junction of two walls. widely, among other places, to Italy, Spain, Germany, Russia, the USA and, in 1930, Tahiti. Fig. 8 Dance (first version), left panel; oil on canvas; 340 x 387 cm/ 134 x Fig. 3 Madame Matisse, 1913; oil on canvas, 146 x 97 cm/ 57.5 x 152 in; 1931–3; Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris. 38.2 in; Leningrad, State Hermitage Museum. Reproduced from Reproduced from Gowing, p. 438. Aragon, vol. 1, p. 22. REDUCTION TO ESSENTIALS Gowing, referring to a large mural commission obtained Matisse’s art more often than not is notably economical in its from the Barnes Foundation in Pennsylvania, continues: means. The essential is distilled out from what is considered In contrast, the Barnes murals were perhaps the most distracting or irrelevant, usually at the cost, as McMullen mannered inventions of Matisse’s career. The flat shapes observes, of any kind of conventional sentiment. This trait of the dancers, anticipating his later use of cut paper, leap towards the severe is very evident in works produced just into and out of the lunettes with a brittle vitality. Neverthe- prior to and during the 1914–18 World War, works such as less, they point towards the painter’s return to a more Madame Matisse, 1912–13; The French Window, 1914; monumental imagery. Over the last 20 years of his long Bathers By a River, 1909, 1913, and1916; and Piano life, Matisse perfected his last, most consistent, mode of Lesson, 1917. Parallels could also be drawn here with Cubist representation. He worked with thin, fluid paint, washing works. off unacceptable essays and starting afresh on the Fig. 4 Bathers by a River, 1909, 1913, and 1916; oil on canvas, 260 cleaned canvas, so preserving the vital quality of sponta- x 390 cm/ 102.4 x 153.5 in; Chicago Art Institute. Reproduced from neity. He drew with broad gestures, avoiding foreshorten- www.artchive.com. ings, and filling the canvas with grand arabesques which he charged with dazzling combinations of glowing colour. Fig. 5 Piano Lesson, 1916–17; oil on canvas, 245 x 212 cm/ 96.5 x Though many of these canvases are small they have a 83.5 in; New York, Museum of Modern Art. Reproduced from Aragon, 3 monumental quality. vol. 1, p. 98. Riviera years Coloured paper cut-outs By the early 1920s, now critically and financially established, In 1947 Matisse published Jazz, a book of his thoughts on Matisse was resident mostly in or around Nice in the south of art and life. His illustrations were designed using a technique France. Lawrence Gowing, as general editor of A Biographic- al Dictionary of Artists, 1994, points up a change from the austere style of the preceding few years as follows: Fig. 9 Icarus (Blue Backgound), 1943; cut-out gouache, 42 x 32 cm/ 16.5 x 12.6 in; from Jazz, 1947. Reproduced from Aragon, vol. 2, p. Fig. 6 Artist and His Model, 1919; oil on canvas, 60 x 73 cm/ 23.6 x 36. 28.7 in; collection of Dr and Mrs Harry Bakwin, New York. Reproduc- ed from Alan Bowness, Matisse and the Nude, Collins, 1968, p. 18. Fig. 10 Sadness of the King, 1952; cut-out gouache, 292 x 386 cm/ 115 x 152 in; Paris, Musée National d’Art Moderne. Reproduced from In a hotel room in Nice in 1919, Matisse painted a totally Jean Guichard-Meile, Matisse, Thames and Hudson, 1967, p. 148. different kind of Artist and his Model [see Fig.