FAUVISMFAUVISM“Wild

Beasts”

Fauvism0Between 1901 and 1906, several

comprehensive exhibitions were held in Paris, making the work of Vincent van Gogh, Paul Gauguin, and Paul Cézanne widely accessible for the first time. For the painters who saw the achievements of these great artists, the effect was one of liberation and they began to experiment with radical new styles. Fauvism was the first movement of this modern period, in which color ruled supreme.

Fauvism0Fauvism, French Fauvisme, style of painting

that flourished in France from 1898 to 1908; it used pure, brilliant color, applied straight from the paint tubes in an aggressive, direct manner to create a sense of an explosion on the canvas. The Fauves painted directly from nature as the Impressionists had before them, but their works were invested with a strong expressive reaction to the subjects they painted.

Fauvism

0First formally exhibited in Paris in 1905, Fauvist paintings shocked visitors to the annual Salon d'Automne; one of these visitors was the critic Louis Vauxcelles, who, because of the violence of their works, dubbed the painters "Les Fauves" (Wild Beasts).

Fauvism0 The advent of Modernism if often dated by the

appearance of the Fauves in Paris at the Salon d'Automne in 1905. Their style of painting, using non-naturalistic colors, was one of the first avant-garde developments in European art. They greatly admired van Gogh, who said of his own work: ``Instead of trying to render what I see before me, I use color in a completely arbitrary way to express myself powerfully''.

Fauvism

0The Fauvists carried this idea further, translating their feelings into color with a rough, almost clumsy style. Matisse was a dominant figure in the movement; other Fauvists included Vlaminck, Derain, Marquet, and Rouault. However, they did not form a cohesive group and by 1908 a number of painters had seceded to Cubism.

Fauvism0Fauvism was a short-lived movement, lasting

only as long as its originator, Henri Matisse (1869-1954), fought to find the artistic freedom he needed. Matisse had to make color serve his art, rather as Gauguin needed to paint the sand pink to express an emotion. The Fauvists believed absolutely in color as an emotional force. Color lost its descriptive qualities and became luminous, creating light rather than imitating it.

Fauvism0They astonished viewers at the 1905 Salon

d'Automne: the art critic Louis Vauxcelles saw their bold paintings surrounding a conventional sculpture of a young boy, and remarked that it was like a Donatello ``parmi les fauves'' (among the wild beasts). The painterly freedom of the Fauves and their expressive use of color gave splendid proof of their intelligent study of van Gogh's art. But their art seemed brasher than anything seen before.

Fauvism0 The leader of the group was Henri Matisse, who had

arrived at the Fauve style after careful, critical study of the masters of Postimpressionism Paul Gauguin, Vincent van Gogh, and Georges Seurat. Matisse's methodical studies led him to reject traditional renderings of three-dimensional space and to seek instead a new picture space defined by movement of color. Matisse exhibited his famous "Woman with the Hat" (SFMOMA) at the 1905 exhibition; brisk strokes of color--blues, greens, and reds--form an energetic, expressive view of the woman. As always in Matisse's Fauve style, his painting is ruled by his intuitive sense of formal order.

Fauvism0Other members of the group included

two painters from Chatou, France, André Derain and Maurice de Vlaminck, who, together with Matisse, formed the nucleus of the Fauves. Derain's Fauve paintings translate every tone of a landscape into pure colour, applied with short, forceful brushstrokes.

Fauvism0 The Fauves represented the first break with the

artistic traditions of the past. The movement's emphasis on formal values and expressive use of color, line, and brushwork helped liberate painting from the representational expectations that had dominated Western art since the Renaissance. Fauvism was the first explosive 20th-century art movement.

Fauvism0Fauvism was for most of these artists a

transitional, learning stage. By 1908 a revived interest in Paul Cézanne's vision of the order and structure of nature had led them to reject the turbulent emotionalism of Fauvism in favour of the logic of Cubism. Matisse alone pursued the course he had pioneered, achieving a sophisticated balance between his own emotions and the world he painted.

Henri Matisse

Self Portrait with Striped T Shirt

1906

Henri Matisse0An artist often regarded as the most

important French painter of the 20th century. The leader of the Fauvist movement around 1900, Matisse pursued the expressiveness of color throughout his career.

Henri Matisse0 While studying to become a lawyer, Henri Matisse felt

the urge to paint—a feeling that completely changed his life. In the exhibition of 1905, Matisse exhibited shocking works with the “Wild Beasts.” He used intense colors and simplified complex subjects. This ability moved him to the forefront of Fauvism and he became spokesperson for the group. He wanted to express himself with simple color and shape rather than shading and perspective.

Henri MatisseMaster of Color

0Matisse's artistic career was long and varied, covering many different styles of painting from Impressionism to near Abstraction. Early on in his career Matisse was viewed as a Fauvist, and his celebration of bright colors reached its peak in 1917 when he began to spend time on the French Riviera at Nice and Venice. Here he concentrated on reflecting the sensual color of his surroundings and completed some of his most exciting paintings.

Abstraction

0 Abstraction:

Imagery which departs from representational accuracy, to a variable range of possible degrees, for some reason other than appear to be true or real. Abstract artists select and then exaggerate or simplify the forms suggested by the world around them.

Henri Matisse0In 1941 Matisse was diagnosed as

having duodenal cancer and was permanently confined to a wheelchair. It was in this condition that he completed the magnificent Chapel of the Rosary in Vence.

Woman with a Hat 1905

Woman with a Hat 1905

0 It is believed that the woman in the painting was Matisse's wife, Amelie.

0 It was exhibited with the work of other artists, now known as "Fauves" at the 1905 Salon d'Automne.

0 The pictures gained considerable condemnation, such as "A pot of paint has been flung in the face of the public" from the critic Camille Mauclair, but also some favorable attention. The painting that was singled out for attacks was Matisse's Woman with a Hat, which was bought by Gertrude and Leo Stein: this had a very positive effect on Matisse, who was suffering demoralization from the bad reception of his work.

Salon d’Automne, ( French: Autumn Salon) exhibition of the works of young artists held every fall in Paris since 1903.

The Salon d’Automne was established as an alternative to the conservative official Salon. It was also an alternative to the Salon des Indépendants, which was liberal but had a juryless policy that often led to mediocrity. The founders decided to form their own organization with the aims of welcoming any artist who wished to join, selecting a jury for exhibitions by drawing straws from the new group’s membership, and giving the decorative arts the same respect accorded the fine arts.

Open Window 1905

Luxury, Calm and Pleasure

1904

0 Green Stripe (Madame Matisse) 0 1905

0 In his green stripe portrait of his wife, he has used color

alone to describe the image. Her oval face is bisected with

a slash of green and her coiffure, purpled and top-

knotted, juts against a frame of three jostling colors. Her

right side repeats the vividness of the intrusive

green; on her left, the mauve and orange echo the colors of

her dress. This is Matisse's version of the dress, his

creative essay in harmony.

Green Stripe—Madame Matisse

0Matisse painted this unusual portrait of his wife in 1905. The green stripe down the center of Amélie Matisse's face acts as an artificial shadow line and divides the face in the conventional portraiture style, with a light and a dark side, Matisse divides the face chromatically, with a cool and warm side. The natural light is translated directly into colors and the highly visible brush strokes add to the sense of artistic drama.

The Conversation 1909

0Matisse's Fauvist years were superseded by an experimental period, as he abandoned three-dimensional effects in favor of dramatically simplified areas of pure color, flat shape, and strong pattern. The intellectual splendor of this dazzlingly beautiful art appealed to the Russian mentality, and many great Matisses are now in Russia. One is The Conversation (1909; 177 x 217 cm (5 ft 9 3/4 in x 7 ft 1 1/2 in)) in which husband and wife converse. But the conversation is voiceless.

The Conversation 1909

The Dance 1910

The Dance 1910

0 It was one of two monumental panel pictures created by the artist in 1910 for his principal patron, the Russian businessman Sergei Schukhin, who originally hung them on the staircase of his mansion in Moscow. Together with its companion piece, Music, the work can now be seen in the State Hermitage Museum in Leningrad.

The Dance0 “I like dance very much,” Matisse said, explaining the

genesis of this stark and brightly coloured depiction of naked, convulsively cavorting figures. “Dance is an extraordinary thing: life and rhythm. It is easy for me to live with dance. When I had to compose a dance for Moscow , I had just gone to the Moulin de la Galette on a Sunday afternoon.

The Dance0And I watched the dancing. I especially watched

the farandole (a dance accompanied by pipe and tabor_ … This farandole was very gay. The dancers hold each other by the hands, they run across the room, and they wind around the people who are standing around … Back at home, I composed my dance on a canvas of four meters, singing the same tune that I had heard at the Moulin de la Galette, so that the entire composition and all the dancers are in harmony and dance to a single rhythm.”

The Red Studio 1911

0Matisse gets his place in the timeline of painting because of his use of color. He did things with color no-one had before, and influenced many artists who followed. Matisse's Red Studio is important for its use of color and its flattened perspective, his altering of reality and our perception of space.

The Red Studio0 Matisse didn't get the perspective "wrong", he painted it

the way he wanted it. He flattened the perspective in the room, and altered it from how we perceive perspective with our eyes.

0 The question of getting perspective "right" applies only if you're trying to paint in a realist style, that is to create an illusion of reality and depth in a painting. If that's not your aim, then you can't get the perspective "wrong". And it's not that Matisse didn't know how to get it "right" neither; he just chose not to do it that way.

Chapel of the Rosary

0 The Chapelle du Rosaire de Vence (Chapel of the Rosary), often referred to as the Matisse Chapel or the Vence Chapel, is a small chapel built for Dominican nuns in the town of Vence on the French Riviera. It was built and decorated between 1949 and 1951 under a plan devised by Henri Matisse. It houses a number of Matisse originals and was regarded by Matisse himself as his "masterpiece." While the simple white exterior has drawn mixed reviews from casual observers, many regard it as one of the great religious structures of the 20th century.

Three Great Murals

0 For the walls, Matisse designed three great murals to be made by painting on white tiles with black paint and then firing the large sections of tile. Each tile measures 12 in.2. Matisse was so crippled with ailments by this time that he could only work from a wheelchair, and he had a long stick with a brush strapped to his arm and pieces of construction paper placed on the wall. He then drew the images, which were transferred to tiles by skilled craftsmen.

The Fall of Icarus 1943

Anfitrite 1947

Le Gerbe 1953

Matisse’s Paper Cuts

0 During the last fifteen years of his life, Henri Matisse developed his final artistic triumph by "cutting into color." The drama, scale, and innovation of Matisse's rare and fragile papiers coupes (paper cutouts) remain without precedent or parallel. His technique involved the freehand cutting of colored papers into beautiful shapes, which he then pinned loosely to the white studio walls, later adjusting, recutting, combining, and recombining them to his satisfaction.

Matisse’s Paper Cuts

0The result created an environment that transcended the boundaries of conventional painting, drawing, and sculpture. Later, the shapes were glued to large white paper backgrounds for shipping or display. This group of cutouts represents one of the largest concentrations of these important works worldwide.