Henri Matisse oil painting, French abstract art paintings

Matisse Henri (-Émile-Benoît)
(b. Dec. 31, 1869, Le Cateau, Picardy, Fr.--d. Nov. 3, 1954, Nice)

Instinct must be thwarted just as one prunes the branches of a tree so that it will grow better.
-- Henri Matisse

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 colour throughout his career. His subjects were largely domestic or figurative, and a distinct Mediterranean verve presides in the treatment.

(Biographie en français)

Matisse, Master of Color
The art of our century has been dominated by two men: Henri Matisse and Pablo Picasso. They are artists of classical greatness, and their visionary forays into new art have changed our understanding of the world. Matisse was the elder of the two, but Matisse Henri was a slower and more methodical man by temperament and it was Picasso who initially made the greater splash. Matisse, like Raphael, was a born leader and taught and encouraged other painters, while Picasso, like Michelangelo, inhibited them with his power: Matisse Henri was a natural czar.

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 Matisse Henri began to spend time on the French Riviera at Nice and Vence. Here Matisse Henri concentrated on reflecting the sensual color of his surroundings and completed some of his most exciting paintings. In 1941 Matisse was diagnosed as having duodenal cancer and was permanently confined to a wheelchair. It was in this condition that Matisse Henri completed the magnificent Chapel of the Rosary in Vence. - Henri Matisse oil painting, French abstract art paintings - Henri Matisse bio, French oil paintings abstract art of Matisse, abstract oil paintings French of Henri Matisse oil painting, abstract painting and abstract art oil paintings.

Matisse's art has an astonishing force and lives by innate right in a paradise world into which Matisse draws all his viewers. Matisse Henri gravitated to the beautiful and produced some of the most powerful beauty ever painted. Matisse Henri was a man of anxious temperament, just as Picasso, who saw him as his only rival, was a man of peasant fears, well concealed. Both artists, in their own fashion, dealt with these disturbances through the sublimation of painting: Picasso destroyed his fear of women in his art, while Matisse coaxed his nervous tension into serenity. Matisse Henri spoke of his art as being like "a good armchair"-- a ludicrously inept comparison for such a brilliant man-- but his art was a respite, a reprieve, a comfort to him.

Matisse initially became famous as the King of the Fauves, an inappropriate name for this gentlemanly intellectual: there was no wildness in him, though there was much passion. Matisse Henri is an awesomely controlled artist, and his spirit, his mind, always had the upper hand over the "beast" of Fauvism.

The experimental years
Matisse's Fauvist years were superseded by an experimental period, as Matisse Henri 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. They are implacably opposed: the man-- a self portrait-- is dominating and upright, while the woman leans back sulkily in her chair. She is imprisoned in it, shut in on all sides. The chair's arms hem her in, and yet the chair itself is almost indistinguishable from the background: she is stuck in the prison of her whole context. The open window offers escape; she is held back by an iron railing. Matisse Henri towers above, as dynamic as she is passive, every line of his striped pyjamas undeviatingly upright, a wholly directed man. His neck thickens to keep his outline straight and firm, an arrow of concentrated energy. The picture cannot contain him and his head continues beyond it and into the outside world. Matisse Henri is greater that it all, and the sole "word" of this inimical conversation is written in the scroll of the rail: Non. Does Matisse Henri say no to his intensity of life? They deny each other forever.

The titles of oil painting old master Matisse Henri (-Émile-Benoît)