Matisse - 7017

Henri Matisse is born on 31st of December 1869 in Le Cateau Cambrésis, North France in a middle class family, but he spent his childhood in Bohain en Vermandois.  In 1887 he studies law in Paris, after that he becomes a clerk. Around this time he is attending art classes and in 1891 he decided to devote himself to the art professionally. 

With continuous breaks Till 1899 Matisse studies painting with William-Adolphe Bouguereau and Gustave Moreau. His work is influenced by Paul Sezanne, Paul Gaugin, Vincent van Gogh and Paul Signac, as well as by the traditional Japanese art. He started to exhibit his works in the mid 90s and this brings him certain popularity. 

In 1899, at a time when his paintings displayed rebellious talent but not much clear direction, Matisse began attending classes in clay modeling and sculpture. Assigned to copy one of the sculptural masterpieces in the Louvre, he selected Jaguar Devouring a Hare a violently precise work by  Antoine-Louis Barye. Later, whenever his paintings seemed stuck, he turned to sculpture to organize his thoughts and sensations.

Influenced by the works of the post-Impressionists Paul Cézanne, Gauguin, Van Goghand Paul Signac, and also by Japanese art, Matisse made color a crucial element of his paintings. Matisse said, "In modern art, it is indubitably to Cézanne that I owe the most." By studying Cézanne’s fragmented planes -- which stretched the idea of the still life to a forced contemplation of color surfaces themselves -- Matisse was able to reconstruct his own philosophy of the still life.

Many of his paintings from 1899 to 1905 make use of a pointillist technique adopted from Signac. In 1898, he went to London to study the paintings of J. M. W. Turner and then went on a trip to Corsica.

After years in poverty, Matisse went through his "dark period" (1902-03), moved briefly to naturalism, went back to a dark palette and told friends in 1903 that he had lost all desire to paint and had almost decided to give up.

Fortunately, Matisse was able to earn some money painting a frieze for the World Fair at the Grand Palais in Paris. He also traveled extensively in the early 1900s when tourism was still a new idea. Brought on by railroad, steamships, and other forms of transportation that appeared during the industrial revolution, travel became a popular pursuit. As a cultured tourist, he developed his art with regular doses of travel.

In 1905 Matisse spends the summer with Andre Derain and he becomes one of the founders and most expressive member of the new movement called Fauvism. This new style brings him large popularity throughout Europe and the states which improves his financial state. Even when the vogue and noise around the new style fade away he continues to be popular as one of the leaders in the French painting. 

Much later he opened an art school in Paris, called Matisse Academy. Given the reputation Matisse had acquired as the"wild man" of modernist color, it must have come as a shock to some of his early students that the program of instruction he offered was remarkably conservative. As Jean Heiberg, the first Norwegian to enroll in the Académie, later wrote in a memoir: "The school had, at Matisse's suggestion, acquired a copy of two antique sculptures from the Louvre, Mars and an archaic sculpture, which he often used to demonstrate. Every now and then he got completely rid of the life model and we only drew from the plaster casts, and his critiques then were no less profitable."

Like many avant-garde artists in Paris, Matisse was receptive to a broad range of influences. He is one of the first painters to take an interest in various forms of “primitive” art. His art was profoundly influenced by Easter art as well.

Throughout his long and productive career, Matisse periodically refreshed his creative energies by turning from painting to drawing, sculpture and other forms of artistic expression. In his lifetime he also produced 12 illustrated books which were known as “livre d’artiste” (artist’s book), a specific type of illustrated book that became common in France around the turn of the century. These books were deluxe, limited editions, meant to be collected and admired as works of art, as well as, read.

From 1917 till the end of his life Matisse lives in Simiez on the French Riviera (today a part of Niza). In 1941 he understands he has cancer and after a surgery he has to move using wheelchair. However he continues to work and during this period there are lots of cut paper collages to be noticed. 

He called the next 14 years – his second life and never stopped working although he experiences certain difficulties. Except the paper cut-offs he has done a lot of painting sculptures and decorations for scene plays and interior designs during this period.

Matisse died of a heart attack at the age of  84 shortly after he finished one of his biggest projects – interior design, decoration and windows of the Chapelle du Rosaire in Venice.This project took 4 years to be finished and the church did not accept it very well. He is interred in the cemetery of the Monastère Notre Dame de Cimiez and a Matisse Museum was opened in the area.