Fauvism

Between 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.
 Fauvism
Fauvism, 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
First 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).
 Fauvism
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
The 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.
 Fauvism
Fauvism 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.
 Fauvism
They 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.
 Fauvism
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.
 Fauvism
Other 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.
 Fauvism
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.
 Fauvism
Fauvism 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 Matisse
An 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 Matisse
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 Matisse
Master of Color
Matisse'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.
 Henri Matisse
In 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
It is believed that the woman in the painting was
Matisse's wife, Amelie.

It was exhibited with the work of other artists, now

known as "Fauves" at the 1905 Salon d'Automne.

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
 Green Stripe (Madame Matisse)
1905
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
Matisse 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
Matisse'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
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 Dance
“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 Dance
And 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
Matisse 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 Studio
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.

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
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
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

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
The 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.