Henri Matisse Masterpiece Collection

812 Matisse Works

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Colors Have a Beauty of Their Own Which Must Be Preserved

Interior. 2016. Pastel, Graphite, Dry Ground & Oil. 18" x 14." Casey Klahn.


Colors have a beauty of their own, which must be preserved.
Henri Matisse.

Book Love

They make these things called books.

MATISSE: Radical Invention 1913-1917

Barnes & Noble.

Intermezzo

Embed from Getty Images

Henri Matisse with Model Henriette Darricarrère, in Nice. 1927.

From Hilary Spurling, Smithsonian Magazine, 2005. Matisse and His Models. 

The same seems to have been true of the models for his odalisque paintings of the 1920s. The first of these odalisques—sprawling in “harem costumes” on improvised divans—was Antoinette Arnoud’s successor, Henriette Darricarrère, who was working as an extra when Matisse spotted her in the film studios in Nice. He liked her natural dignity, the graceful way her head sat on her neck and, above all, the fact that her body caught the light like a sculpture. A ballet dancer and musician, Henriette became part of the family in the seven years she worked for Matisse. His wife grew especially fond of her, and he himself taught her to paint.
Matisse said it was essential to start by finding the pose that made any new model feel most comfortable. Henriette’s specialty was discovered by accident after a carnival party attended by Matisse and his daughter, dressed respectively as an Arab potentate and a beauty from the harem. Marguerite Matisse, Lorette, even Antoinette Arnoud, all tried on turbans and embroidered Moroccan tops, but it was Henriette, always modest, even prim, in her street clothes, who wore the filmy blouses and low-slung pants without inhibition, becoming at once luxuriant, sensual and calmly authoritative.
The pictorial possibilities she opened up for Matisse were enhanced by her exceptional sensitivity and stamina. He saw the work they produced together as an increasingly complex orchestration of colored light and mass, culminating in his Decorative Figure on an Ornamental Ground, which was almost as incomprehensible in 1926 as the Blue Nude had been nearly 20 years earlier. The painting is a riot of exuberant trompe l’oeil wallpaper, flowers, fruit and patterned textiles, all pinned firmly in place by the pale upright figure of Henriette. She looked as impersonal and unyielding as a side of packaged butcher’s meat to Matisse’s friend, the painter Jules Flandrin, who was baffled and exhilarated in equal measure: “I can’t begin to convey the brilliantly successful contrast between the wallpaper flowers and the woman so skillfully mishandled,” he wrote to a friend. Soon after the completion of Decorative Figure, Henriette left to get married.

Decorative Figure on an Ornamental Background. 1925.

Matisse Month 

Many Works by Matisse - Worth a Look

Virtual Walk Through of the Cut Outs and My Visit to the MoMA in 2014

In 2014 it was my thrill to see the Henri Matisse Cut Outs exhibit at the MoMA. Installed in multiple rooms, including a full scale model of the dining room in Nice where he created the Swimming Pool, this exposition brought Matisse's legacy forward. He still thrills and challenges visual norms. In the last paragraph below there is a link to a virtual walk through of the Cut Outs.

The indefatigable Hilary Spurling, Matisse's biographer, Sums up his life and the Cut Outs in this video from the Tate.

Although at first much of this new form of art seemed impenetrable to me, I slowly began to unlock Henri's messages. Some are as simple as how his maquette for a Vance window means "up," or how Oceana means "immersive and unified." Gustave Moreau taught Matisse and prophesied that he would "simplify art." Indeed, here in the final works of his long career, Henri Matisse distilled color and form into visual delights without missing a beat. It's as if you are awoken in an operating room and your visuals are being administered intravenously. There is no spoon-feeding of subjects or details; you feel directly the experience of a lifetime of seeing. You are walking around inside of Matisse's artwork.

Matisse was not being boastful when he said that it would take fifty years for people to understand these works. Here we are over sixty years hence, and mystery still enshrouds his works. What was he trying to say (and what gave him the iron nerve to say it?) with these childish decoupages? 

MoMA provides this examination of what the Cut Outs are.

This walk-through link gives you nearly the experience of the actual show, except that it is linear instead of circuitous. Using clear colors and sharp photography, it provides you with a fine record of the event. Enjoy. Source: New York Times. 

Attributions:

  "When he’s genuinely tough and self-demanding, as he is in some later work, he’s on a plane of his own. Whatever pain it took, the late work is made for love."
  Produced by Larry Buchanan, Alicia DeSantis and Josh Williams.  Composite photograph by Emon Hassan. Images © 2015 Succession H. Matisse / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.

Henri Matisse - Modern Master Printmaker

Drawings, Lithographs, Etchings, Linocuts, and Woodcuts by Henri Matisse. ISSUU publication.

Link.

A Certain Blue

Matisse Chapel and Tate Matisse Blog

Simple observations are often the kernel of genius. The rub is, they have to contain the truth. Henri Matisse had the genius of simplicity.

On the subject of simplicity, I keep coming back to what Françoise Gilot says (without wasting a word herself) about Henri Matisse and his work. She revered his objective of "...mounting the color to the extreme."

You can learn much by watching a master just drawing on the wall. Here is a short video of Matisse as he designed the Chapel of the Rosary in Vence, France.

For more resources on Matisse, on the subject of the chapel project and much more, I refer you to the Tate Modern blogs on Matisse.

Matisse - Short Bio

Henri Matisse. 1869-1954.

He migrated south within his native France; born in the north, then to Paris in the central part of the country, and finally he settled in the south on the French Riviera. He found color to his liking, and it became his chief tool of expression. M. Henri Matisse bestrode the Modern Era as a titan, and showed the visual world color and line in their pure forms, all the while working from life. 

French painter Henri Matisse (1869 - 1954) in his studio.

May 01, 1913. Credit: Alvin Langdon Coburn.

Artworks:

Henri Matisse - Music. 1910. 260 x 389 cm. / 102.4" x 153." Oil on Canvas.

Henri Matisse - La Mimosa, 1951. Mimosa, 1949–51, a cut-paper maquette for a rug that was realized in 1951.

Matisse Drawings

I'm always the last to know about these exhibits. This was in Brisbane in 2011.  Enjoy this short window into Henri Matisse's life practice of drawing.

Matisse Museum

The Musée Matisse.



This is funny. Anthony Peregrine of the UK Telegraph, writes this
"...word of warning: going to Nice solely for Matisse smacks of hair-shirted obsessiveness."

That'd be me. Can't do beaches or water sports. My shirt's too hairy, I guess. Hee hee.

I do plan on addressing the resistance to Matisse that many feel, which is like in kind to the resistance to Modern art, only more focused. Please return here for the Month of Matisse posts.

Matisse Month

Matisse Month.

Since Henri Matisse was born on December 31st, 1869, it seems good to spend a month celebrating the old keener. Matisse was the definitive colorist, and without doubt the greatest French artist of the 20th Century. It is worth noting that Pablo Picasso said: "In the end, there is only Matisse." 

Drawing is of the spirit; color is of the senses.

I've been over forty years discovering that the queen of all colors is black.

Drawing is putting a line round an idea.

Seek the strongest color effect possible. The content is of no importance.

Creativity takes courage.

Quotes by Henri Matisse.

Quote Image: Like Success dot Com.

Never Forget the Affection I Had for You.

Blue Nude

Biskra Blue Nude. 2015. Pastel, Charcoal & Graphite. 17" x 14.75." Casey Klahn.

Sketch, White Nude on Blue. 2015. Graphite & Pastel. @6." Casey Klahn.

Blue Nude. Digital Drawing. Large. Casey Klahn.

My inspiration for the blue nudes originates with the 1907 work of the same subject by Henri Matisse, shown below. A disrobed woman in Algeria was his model, and the painting reflects his search for new imagery in north Africa. 

Matisse, in Biskra, Algeria: "I went from one surprise to the next - without being able to tell if my amazement came from the vastness of the country, or the new types of human being I was seeing, or from purely pictorial emotions."

A conversation between Picasso and Walter Pach, while viewing Matisse's Blue Nude: "Does that interest you?" asked Picasso. "In a way, yes...it interests me like a blow between the eyes. I don't know what he is thinking." "Neither do I," said Picasso. "If he wants to make a woman, let him make a woman. If he wants to make a design, let him make a design. This is between the two."

Late in his life, in 1952, Matisse revisited the Blue Nude title with his series of famous cut-outs. 

Henri Matisse, 1907, Blue Nude (Souvenir de Biskra), Nu bleu: Souvenir de Biskra, oil on canvas, 92.1 x 140.3 cm (36 1/4 x 55 1/4 in.), Cone collection, Baltimore Museum of Art.

Sean Scully on Henri Matisse

Moroccan Paintings by Henri Matisse at The State Hermitage Museum, Russia.
Photo: Casey Klahn.

Moroccan Cafe. 1912-13.

o/c, 176x210 cm
Henri Matisse
Four Dimensions

This older, 40 minute video of Sean Scully's commentary on Henri Matisse is well worth seeing. His particular understanding of Matisse's time in Morocco provided brilliant insights for me. I have always been challenged by the paintings done in the North African country, such as Moroccan Café, which Scully takes apart in this video. Remember that Matisse's Blue Nudes were all generated by his North African experiences. Enjoy.

ARTISTS' JOURNEYS: SEAN SCULLY ON HENRI MATISSE

Saint Petersburg

Meeting The Master, with Odd Nerdrum.

The writer Torgrim Eggen interviews Odd Nerdrum at the cultural heart of Russia, visiting the Hermitage Museum, the State Russian Museum, St. Isaac's cathedral and the Repin Academy.

I toured the same museum and sights in Russia last August. In this video, Norwegian artist Odd Nerdrum is paying hommage to Rembrandt, in the same manner that I paid hommage to Matisse when I went to St Petersburg. Read I Ascended Alone, where I recount my own life-changing trip.

Steal Like An Artist

The Back of a Figurine by Matisse. 2014. 

@10" x 8" 

Pastel & Charcoal

Casey Klahn

ART THEFT!

Photo by:

Olya Powzaniuk 

This'll Be Fun!

New York City.

I'll be in New York to see the Matisse Cut-Outs exhibit at the MoMA in a little over a week. I recently saw about 30 works by Henri Matisse in Russia. I'm still blogging about that trip, but the posts to date are here:

I Ascended Alone.

Vermillion Ideas.  

The Cut-Outs began at the Tate, in London. Here is the support for this super-exhibition:

Henri Matisse: The Cut-Outs at Tate Modern.

Blue Certainty.

Matisse: Video Support.

Please return here for my reports on this sure-to-be-incredible trip!