Henri Matisse
Henri Emile Benoit Matisse (1869-1954), one of the most important French painters of the twentieth century but was still hated by his fellow countrymen who one critic described his art as 'Les Fauves' or 'The Wild Beasts'. His work was wildly colourful and different from traditional art. A lot of his images were not detailed or two dimensional but were quite flat in appearance. His choice of colors were different from other artists as well. He would not paint objects in the colours you expected them to be, for example one of his paintings 'The Wild Beasts' named after the comment a critic had called his painting 'Woman with the hat', depicts naked people in deep reds against a one tone green background. Although he was hated in his native France, elsewhere people admired his work holding exhibitions in New York, Moscow and Berlin.
After Henri Matisse developed stomach cancer and was too ill to work alone, he hired assistants to help him with his art. They would paint sheets of paper for him in the colour of his choice which he would cut into shapes by hand and have his assistants place them down once he had decided the placement for them which could take hours or days. His cutouts were usually very colourful and big in size. He would also use the silhouette of the shape that he had cut out. He did a lot of sea scenes with corals and occasionally people.
When I tried this technique of cutting out, I found it quite difficult getting the shapes without drawing them first. It was also hard to envisage what you wanted to put on the paper without knowing what shapes you wanted to have. I also decided to keep mine in shades of blue even though Matisse would use more vibrant shades and contrasting colours.
Matisse's work has gone onto inspire designers in the fashion world with prints of his work, mainly his cutouts used in fabric prints which end up on the catwalk people like Annette Stai in Yves Saint Laurent’s Matisse-inspired blouse, 1981 and Cecil Beaton’s Matisse-inspired Vogue cover.
After Henri Matisse developed stomach cancer and was too ill to work alone, he hired assistants to help him with his art. They would paint sheets of paper for him in the colour of his choice which he would cut into shapes by hand and have his assistants place them down once he had decided the placement for them which could take hours or days. His cutouts were usually very colourful and big in size. He would also use the silhouette of the shape that he had cut out. He did a lot of sea scenes with corals and occasionally people.
When I tried this technique of cutting out, I found it quite difficult getting the shapes without drawing them first. It was also hard to envisage what you wanted to put on the paper without knowing what shapes you wanted to have. I also decided to keep mine in shades of blue even though Matisse would use more vibrant shades and contrasting colours.
Matisse's work has gone onto inspire designers in the fashion world with prints of his work, mainly his cutouts used in fabric prints which end up on the catwalk people like Annette Stai in Yves Saint Laurent’s Matisse-inspired blouse, 1981 and Cecil Beaton’s Matisse-inspired Vogue cover.
I did two painting in the style of Henri Matisse. I looked at his portrait of Madame Matisse "The Green Line" and tired my own version.
I did one in bright colours and then tried the same painting but in black and white which turned out to be harder than I thought.
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