FAUVISMSTARTED: 1899ENDED: 1908

NAMEGRADEDATE

WHAT IS FAUVISM?Fauvism, the first twentieth-century movement in modern art, was initially inspired by the examples of Vincent van Gogh, Paul Gauguin, Georges Seurat, and Paul Cézanne. The Fauves ("wild beasts") were a loosely allied group of French painters with shared interests. Several of them, including Henri Matisse, Albert Marquet, and Georges Rouault, had been pupils of the Symbolist artist Gustave Moreau and admired the older artist's emphasis on personal expression. Matisse emerged as the leader of the group, whose members shared the use of intense color as a vehicle for describing light and space, and who redefined pure color and form as means of communicating the artist's emotional state. In these regards, Fauvism proved to be an important precursor to Cubism and Expressionism as well as a touchstone for future modes of abstraction.

http://www.theartstory.org/movement-fauvism.htm

WHAT DOES FAUVISM MEAN?

• After viewing the boldly colored canvases of Henri Matisse, André Derain, Albert Marquet, Maurice de Vlaminck, Kees van Dongen, Charles Camoin, and Jean Puy at the Salon d'Automne of 1905, the critic Louis Vauxcelles disparaged the painters as "fauves" (wild beasts), thus giving their movement the name by which it became known: Fauvism. The artists shared their first exhibition at the 1905 Salon d'Automne. The group gained their name after Vauxcelles described their show of work with the phrase "Donatello chez les fauves" ("Donatello among the wild beasts").

• The painting that was singled out for attacks was Matisse's Woman with a Hat; this work's purchase by Gertrude and Leo Stein had a very positive effect on Matisse, who was suffering demoralization from the bad reception of his work.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fauvism

KEY IDEAS• One of Fauvism's major contributions to modern art was its radical goal of

separating color from its descriptive, representational purpose and allowing it to exist on the canvas as an independent element. Color could project a mood and establish a structure within the work of art without having to be true to the natural world.

• Another of Fauvism's central artistic concerns was the overall balance of the composition. The Fauves' simplified forms and saturated colors drew attention to the inherent flatness of the canvas or paper; within that pictorial space, each element played a specific role. The immediate visual impression of the work is to be strong and unified.

• Above all, Fauvism valued individual expression. The artist's direct experience of his subjects, his emotional response to nature, and his intuition were all more important than academic theory or elevated subject matter. All elements of painting were employed in service of this goal.

http://www.theartstory.org/movement-fauvism.htm

HENRI MATISSE

• Born: 31 December 1869 Died: 3rd November, 1954

ABOUT HIM • Henri-Émile-Benoît Matisse was a French artist, known for both

his use of color and his fluid and original draughtsmanship. He was a draughtsman, printmaker, and sculptor, but is known primarily as a painter.• Matisse is commonly regarded as one of the three artists who

helped to define the revolutionary developments in the plastic arts in the opening decades of the twentieth century, responsible for significant developments in painting and sculpture. He was initially labelled a Fauve (wild beast) and by the 1920s he was increasingly hailed as an upholder of the classical tradition in French painting. His mastery of the expressive language of color and drawing, displayed in a body of work spanning over a half-century, won him recognition as a leading figure in modern art.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henri_Matisse

• His vast oeuvre encompassed painting, drawing, sculpture, graphic arts (as diverse as etchings, linocuts, lithographs, and aquatints), paper cutouts, and book illustration. His varied subjects comprised landscape, still life, portraiture, domestic and studio interiors, and particularly focused on the female figure.

•  During his brief Fauvist period, Matisse produced a significant number of remarkable canvases, such as the portrait of Madame Matisse, called The Green Line (1905); Bonheur de vivre (1905–6); Marguerite Reading (1905–6); two versions of The Young Sailor (1906), the second of which is at the Metropolitan Museum Blue Nude: Memory of Biskra (1907; Baltimore Museum of Art); and two versions of Le Luxe (1907), among others.

Types of his Works and Famous Paintings

HENRI MATISSE: THE CUT-OUTS

• Everyone knows Matisse is all about joy: the joy of dance, colour and life. Though this is self-evident and rightly celebrated, it is a mistake just to accept it or to move on without asking, what is this joy? The standard response would be a synonym (vitality, perhaps) that would add little to an understanding of any real depth. Instead, let’s consider joy as a form of defiance, in the face of grave illness and mortality. Given three years to live (he would survive for more than a decade), Matisse was wheelchair-bound when he created these works. Their very existence is owed to the fact he could no longer paint as he once could. Instead, with assistance, he sculpted in 2D with scissors and paper, or as he called it, “carving into color”. The results, as authoritatively and delightfully shown in this exhibition, were bold, spirited and inventive, as many critics have attested.

MATERIALS

• During the last decade of his life Henri Matisse deployed two simple materials—white paper and gouache—to create works of wide-ranging color and complexity. An unorthodox implement, a pair of scissors, was the tool Matisse used to transform paint and paper into a world of plants, animals, figures, and shapes.

WHAT IS A CUT-OUT?• The cut-outs were created in distinct phases. The raw

materials—paper and gouache—were purchased, and the two materials combined: studio assistants painted sheets of paper with gouache. Matisse then cut shapes from these painted papers and arranged them into compositions. For smaller compositions the artist worked directly on a board using pins. For larger compositions, Matisse directed his studio assistants to arrange them on the wall of his studio. Subsequently, cut-outs were mounted permanently, either in the studio or in Paris by professional mounters.

• https://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2014/matisse/the-cut-outs.html

PAINTING THE PAPER

• The color on Matisse’s cut-outs is produced using gouache—a water-based, opaque, quick-drying, matte paint that consists of pigment, binder, and often a white pigment or filler to increase opacity. Matisse purchased a wide range of colors at supply houses in both Paris and Nice, choosing tubes based on color and freshness. Studio assistants cut rectangular sheets of paper from large rolls. Gouache, thinned with water, was applied to the paper and then weighted until dry. Some sheets had a more dense application of gouache and some more visibly retained the brushstrokes.

CUTTING• When Matisse was working on a specific project, he would ask for an

assortment of painted paper sheets to be placed on the studio floor. He would choose a particular sheet and then cut a shape, letting the remainder of the sheet fall to the floor. For larger forms a studio assistant would assist in guiding the paper to facilitate a smooth and continuous cut. Although Matisse was filmed using large scissors, close examination of the existing cut-outs shows that he must have used a variety of sizes. Some forms, even very large ones, were cut from one sheet of paper. Others, particularly the stars that appear in many works, were cut from many smaller shapes, which were assembled to create the final desired form. In some cases the multiple pieces narrowly overlap; in others large cut forms were overlaid with yet another cut form. The outline of the form was the ultimate goal of the artist, not the layered structure.

PINNING

• Matisse used pins (probably sewing pins), thumb tacks, and thin nails to secure the cut forms; for small formats the artist would work on a board while sitting in a chair or in bed. As compositions grew in size the walls of the studio became the supports for the cut-outs. Studio assistants would pin cut forms to the wall with a hammer, following the directions of the artist. This method allowed for quick and easy attachment; positions could be altered and refashioned easily. The numerous pinholes that remain in the cut-outs attest to these initial mountings and repositionings.

TRACING

• It was often necessary to remove a cut-out from the studio wall, either when Matisse needed wall space for a new composition or when works were to be mounted. In order to have an accurate and permanent record of the placement of each cut form, a tracing was made. When there were overlapping forms, each form was numbered on the reverse.

MOUNTING

• Until 1950–51 Matisse and his studio assistants mounted cut-outs in the studio, as the works were modest in their dimensions. When works were sold prior to this date, they were mounted with a technique called "spot gluing." The cut forms were adhered to the underlying paper with small dabs of glue. The technique allowed for the works to be framed and transported while retaining the three-dimensional liveliness they had when pinned to a board or the wall.

• Matisse, who was very concerned about the long-term preservation of his cut-outs, felt that this technique was a satisfactory answer to his needs. The benefit of this technique was that the mounted cut-outs—even in very large dimensions—could be safely stored, framed, and transported. As the gouache surfaces were quite prone to abrasion from any physical contact, Matisse wanted his works to be glazed. The drawback of this process was that the cut-outs lost the dimensionality that they had when still pinned to the walls of the studio.

STABILITY AND DETERIORATION

• When a viewer stands in front of a Matisse cut-out today, does the work appear as it did when Matisse created it? Paramount is the color stability of the gouache-painted paper shapes. Scientific analysis has determined that each particular gouache formula had its own stability: some colors are very stable and some fade quickly in light. Within a given color—orange, for example—there is a wide range of stability. Although Matisse was aware that some colors were unstable—he had seen pink and violet pieces fade in his own studio—he would not have been aware of the long-term stability of all of the colors he was using. As Matisse chose his gouache-painted papers, perhaps some newly painted and some that he had saved, he would have been introducing uneven color stability into his compositions.

COLOR AND LINE

• Throughout his career, Matisse searched for a way to unite the formal elements of color and line. On the one hand, he was known as a master colorist: from the non-realistic palette that earned him the designation of a fauve or “wild beast” in the first decade of the twentieth century, to the light-infused interiors of his so-called “Nice period” of the 1920s, he followed a course of what he described as “construction by means of color.” On the other hand, he was a master draftsman, celebrated for drawings and prints that describe a figure in fluid arabesque lines; “my line drawing is the purest and most direct translation of my emotion,” he once said. Through the cut-outs, he was finally able to unite these two branches of his practice. He described the process of making them as both “cutting directly into color” and “drawing with scissors.”

THE SHEAF (1953)

Matisse’s cut-outs, as the exhibition reveals, were perhaps the artist’s answer to his life-long probing of color, drawing and form.  His late collages and cut-paper pieces virtually explode with vivid colors, and

perhaps even more vivid shapes, applying the painter’s skilled hand to the scissors.  The smooth

lines and cuts of his forms belie Matisse’s fascination with the painterly stroke, applied in a series of fluid,

gentle lines that bring vastly different colors and forms into close harmony.  Minimizing his approach

to its core elements, the cut-outs represent Matisse’s final goal in perhaps its most cohesive manner: a

fusion of color and form through the effortless movement of the artist’s hand.  Even in the face of his own failing health, Matisse was able to continue

his work towards a singular goal, breaking vastly new ground as he went.

http://artobserved.com/2014/08/london-henri-matisse-the-cut-outs-at-the-tate-modern-through-september-7th-2014/

ICARUS (1946)As a pioneer in the graphic sense. The Fall of Icarus (1943) at first appears stationary until

you realize that the central character is falling into the picture, towards a watery grave

behind, or more accurately beneath, him. Constructed in the depths of the second world

war, the bursts of light could be the detonations of bombs or alternatively the sun

repeatedly glimpsed as the mythical figure tumbles, almost in a dance, to the sea. The

latter interpretation would suggest a manipulation of time and space to match

Matisse’s rival Picasso. Intriguingly, the basic but evocative silhouette of the falling figure,

and indeed much of the design work here, calls to mind the work of later artists such as Saul

Bass.

http://www.metmuseum.org/collection/the-collection-online/search/337069

• This bold and playful image is one of twenty plates Matisse created to illustrate his groundbreaking book "Jazz." The illustrations derive from maquettes of cut and pasted colored papers, which were then printed using a stencil technique known as "pochoir." Here, the mythological figure Icarus is presented in a simplified form floating against a royal blue nighttime sky. Matisse's flat, abstracted forms and large areas of pure color marked an important change in the direction of his later work and ultimately influenced "hard-edge" artists of the 1960s like Ellsworth Kelly and Al Held.

THE SNAIL (1953)

Matisse was known throughout his life for his daring use of color, and also as one of the spearheads of Fauvism in France, the early

twentieth century movement of Modern artists who created works using strong painterly

qualities alongside a rich use of color rather than the representational values found in

Impressionism.  At the end of his life, Matisse was often bedridden and unable to paint. He

thus began working with his assistants on large-scale cut-outs that incorporated his striking hues. The works became his most

important means of artistic expression until his death in 1954.

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