Henri Matisse (1869 - 1954)

By Paul Dunwell, writing for EasyFrame
© Copyright EasyFrame 2021

What this Article is About

Henri-Émile-BenoîtMatisse was a highly-influential French artist who is often mentioned in the same breath as his contemporary, lifelong friend and rival Pablo Picasso because of the impact that the duo made during the early 20th century.

Matisse was principally renowned as a painter and draughtsman though he was a capable sculptor, interior designer, collagist and printmaker who executed aquatints, etchings, linocuts and lithographs famous for their mastery of line too. He even undertook set and costume-design. Yet the man was so very versatile, something that was evident not simply in his accomplishments spanning several media but in the range of styles applicable to each, that he was a contradiction on several counts. Thus it is perhaps a mistake to label him. He defied categorisation.

Why would one say that? Because, despite being a consummately capable creative in three dimensions, he developed an unusual take on flattened forms. Because, despite being famous for his capacity to use pigments in two dimensions, he worked in clay and bronze where there was no colour palette. And because, despite being considered as one of the pre-eminent 'wild beasts' or Fauvists, essentially an abstract artist, he also became an exponent of classical style.

His Start in Art

Matisse only started painting in earnest when he was 20 after his mum Anna Heloise Gerard bought him some paints to give him something to do whilst he was convalescing with appendicitis (they'd been doing appendectomies for 150 years at that point but apparently they left his in situ and intact, something that may well have ultimately been his downfall).

Hitherto he'd trained as a legal administrator and worked in Le Cateau-Cambrésis where he'd been born, though he'd been raised in Bohain-en-Vermandois (both towns are in northern France) and educated in Paris. But now he quit his secure job, irking his father who was a wealthy hardware and grain merchant. Though, doubtless, if Hippolyte-Henri Matisse had known that just one of his son's canvasses would later fetch .75m, and that a single bronze depicting a nude from behind would make .8m, he might have been a tad more encouraging. Both of those works are shown below.

Formal Education as an Artist and Almost-Endless Influences

Matisse went back to Paris to study at Julian Rodolphe's academy where he was taught by both Gustave Moreau (a so-called 'symbolist' who specialised in Biblical and mythological work) and William-Adolphe Bouguereau (who was likewise into depictions of the classics, mythology and the female form).

During this period he was influenced by the works of past masters including Nicolas Poussin (a Baroque artist who had similar interests to Moreau above), Antoine Watteau (likewise Baroque) and Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin (who had specialised in domestic scenes and still life; Matisse is known to have copied several of his works in The Louvre).

More contemporary influences were the Japanese (Japan was 'opened up' by the American navy in 1845 after a century of self-isolation so only then would the work of Hokusai, who was to only live another 4 years, emerge) though Matisse was also inspired by Persian and other Oriental works, often erotic, and by the modernist Edouard Manet.

Later Matisse was to befriend the Australian painter John Russell (who he credited with teaching him colour theory, after which Matisse toned it down a bit) and Russell's pal Vincent van Gogh. And then he was to be influenced by the Danish-French impressionist Camille Pissarro, the work of the landscapist and seascapist JWM Turner as well as that of the synthesist/impressionist Gauguin, Albert Marquet (who was a close friend; Matisse thought him to be the French equivalent in terms of simplicity to Hokusai), Andre Derain (another founder of Fauvism, he painted Matisse; see above), Jean Puy (another fellow Fauvist), Jules Flandrin (who'd trained under Moreau with Matisse, was also a Fauvist, draughtsman and a war hero), Rodin (the founder of modern sculpture), Cezanne (the impressionist-cum-cubist), Henri-Edmond Cross the painter and printmaker, Henri Rousseau the primitivist, Paul Signac the pointillist and sculptor Antoine-Louis Barye. So Matisse was eternally open to new ideas and a bit like blotting-paper in that he had the ability to synthesise the work of many influencers.

It is also worth mentioning that Matisse was well-travelled. As has already been noted he journeyed to Britain to look at Turner's work. He studied primitive and African art on several visits to Algeria. But he also went to Munich to study Islamic art, Spain to study Moorish art, Italy, Corsica, Tahiti and Russia. Despite this he remained a French resident and once remarked that if everyone who was anyone left France then it wouldn't leave much of France.

Kicking Off a Career

By this time Matisse’s work was being exhibited in the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts. A lot of people didn’t like it. Some of it was burnt in effigy and at times he struggled to provide for his family (he’d had a daughter, Marguerite, with the model Caroline Joblau, then married Amélie Noellie Parayre and they had two sons called Jean and Pierre with whom Marguerite was raised as a full sister). But even detractors recognised that Matisse’s work might make a great investment and France itself bought two works.

Colour

You'll have noticed the brash use of colour. It has been said that, because he'd been raised in northern France where the landscape is a little unprepossessing, where brown fields stretch relentlessly from horizon to horizon, he was subsequently on a colour crusade. And there may be something in that.

Personality

It would seem that Matisse was a product of a bourgeois upbringing, a man who was - despite his sometimes radically-different art - a conservative man with quite a work ethic. He was sociable and has been described as being considerably more affable than Picasso with whom he competed in an amicable manner. Despite their similarities Matisse tended to depict what he observed whereas Picasso was more reliant on his imagination. Yet they admired each other.

Although he was tagged as a ‘wild beast’ by virtue of his Fauvism, Matisse was pleasant and popular – sufficiently so to attract the patronage of fellow celebrities such as the American novelist Gertrude Stein and her entourage, fellow American collectors Claribel and Etta Cone, the Russian art collector Sergei Ivanovitch Shchukin and gallery-owner Ambroise Vollard. Yet he was not a bohemian hedonist so at artistic hotspots such as Montparnasse he was the odd-man-out.

Later Life

In later life Matisse's marriage fell apart, he developed duodenal cancer and went through World War Two during which his family did much to obstruct the Nazis at some personal risk. He personally was given an easier ride than many by the Germans despite the possibility that his work would have been labelled as degenerate and non-Aryan. But, being ill, he ultimately opted for a less-demanding form of creativity and thus developed the art of decoupage using pre-printed papers that he cut up and rearranged. The duodenal cancer spread to his abdomen. He kept working but only on paper cut-outs. And even then he needed an army of assistants. His last work was on a stained-glass window for a friend who'd become a nun though he was an atheist. Ultimately, despite the cancer, a heart-attack claimed him.

Conclusion

In summary Matisse was remarkably versatile and left an immense legacy. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_works_by_Henri_Matisse for a useful-but-incomplete list. You can easily and affordably buy unframed prints of his work. Try going to the National Gallery site at www.nationalgallery.co.uk and searching for 'Matisse', for example. You should find Matisse, Henri | Tate. The Tate has lots of his work for sale. But it's not alone.

You'll want to frame whatever you buy. Any good framers will be able to show you a vast range of different solutions and advise on what might be the most suitable given the work and its proposed location.

EasyFrame is on 01234 856 501 and / or sales@EasyFrame.co.uk and they'll always chat even if you don't want to buy!