Henri Matisse
Still Life after Jan Davidsz. de Heem's 'La Desserte'
Henri Matisse was one of the great "colorist of the 20th century" and is one of Picasso's rivals in the area of innovations. Matisse is reported to have "emerged as a Postimpressionist, and first achieved prominence as the leader of the French movement Fauvism." (The Art Story, 2011) Matisse was interested in Cubism but rejected this seeking rather to use color "as the foundation for expressive, decorative, and often monumental paintings." (The Art Story, 2011) Matisse is noted for having stated that he sought to create an art that would be "a soothing, calming influence on the mind, rather like a good armchair." (The Art Story, 2011) Matisse was born to a middle class family and his father was a merchant selling grain and hardware. Matisse began his career as a law clerk but was anxious and felt the work too tedious. After an appendicitis attack during his recovery, it is reported that Matisse 'discovered the welcome isolation and freedom of painting." (The Art Story, 2011) In 1891, Matisse traveled to Paris to study art but failed the entrance exams for the Ecole des Beaux Arts however joining the studio of French symbolist painter Gustave Moreau in 1892. Moreau instructed his students stating that colors "…must be thought, dreamed, imagined." (The Art Story, 2011) It was the Symbolist influence that led Matisse to use color so expressively in his own works. In 1905, Matisse spent the summer in Collioure and worked with Andre Derain for the purpose of creating a "new style of pure colors and bright light. The new style became known as Fauvism." (The Art Story, 2011) Fauvism was a very short movement ending soon and in 1905, Matisse became acquainted with Pablo Picasso beginning a "lifelong friendship and rivalry." (The Art Story, 2011) The work of Picasso and Matisse are differentiated by Picasso's deconstruction of objects into Cubist planes while Matisse constructed an object's form by his use of color.
I. Painting Style
The style of used by Henri Matisse in the painting Still Life after Jan Davidsz. de Heem's 'La Desserte' is that of Cubism. Cubism is a name for art suggested in 1909 by Henri Matisse and is a "non-objective approach to painting developed originally in France around 1906 by Picasso and Baque. Cubism is characterized by the emphasis on the process of construction "of creating a pictorial rhythm and converting the represented forms into the essential geometric shape: the cube, the sphere, the cylinder, and the cone." (Boguslawski, 2005)
The painting is in oils and painted during a "pivotal period in Matisse's artistic development when he temporarily abandoned his interest in decorative patterning and brilliant color for darker, more abstract compositions. The curators propose that these geometrically composed paintings, dominated by blacks and grays, were at least partly a response to World War I, which erupted in Europe in 1914, a year after Matisse, returned to Paris from Morocco." (Levin, 2010) It is stated that the works accomplished by Matisse during these period also serve to "represent his attempt to absorb and respond to the challenge of cubism, then the dominant trend in the avant-garde art world, with its radical reinvention of form and space." (Levin, 2010)
Between the years 1909 and 1911, analysis conducted on human forms and still-lifes resulted in the creation of a "new stylistic system which allowed the artist to transpose the three-dimensional subjects into the flat images on the surface of the canvas. An object, seen from various points-of-view, could be reconstructed using particular separate "views" which overlapped and intersected." (Boguslawski, 2005) Reported, as the result of such reconstruction was "a summation of separate temporal moments on the canvas. Picasso called this reorganized form the "sum of destructions," that is, the sum of the fragmentations. Since color supposedly interfered in purely intellectual perception of the form, the Cubist palette was restricted to a narrow, almost monochromatic scale, dominated by grays and browns." (Boguslawski, 2005)
II. Analysis of Major Theme and Mood
The theme of the painting Still Life after Jan Davidsz. de Heem's 'La Desserte' is a table spread with desserts. Depicted in the painting is a variety of food items including fruits, wine and bread, as well as a mandolin strategically placed nearby. It is clearly during the day as one can see the trees outside of the window, which provides a light that casts shadows on the table and food items. The mood is serene and expectant.
III. Observation of Specific Mode of Expression Employed
Levin...
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