Henri Matisse?

Question

I have been looking at matisse's cutouts and trying to understand the themes going on in them. As far as I can see there is lots of figures and plant forms and some odd objects, anone have any ideas what his main themes are??

Answer 1

He took up paper cutting when his hands grew too arthritic to paint. His paper cutting thus became his artistic vehicle and expressed the same ideas in the main that his painting had. I'm not sure exactly what you mean by main themes, because he did a vast number of cuttings and they depicted different things: expression of jazz music, the circus, etc. If you mean stylistically where they fell, the truest answer would be fauvism, as that was Matisse's forte: fauvism--it is French for "wild beasts"---is characterized by the use of brilliantly clashing colors to express rhythm and vitality. It was a reaction against the muted forms of impressionism and a forerunner of the hard-edged styles of painting that were furthered with artists such as Josef Albers and Piet Mondrian.

Answer 2

Yeah to understand him in depth first you have to know that he is best known for his use of colour and fluid pictures. This indicates that he is saying that everything he is painting is so wonderfull, vibrant and fantastic. Look at his self portrait in a stripey T-shirt he is trying to give you an indication of his personality, saying maybe he is a little wacky with the colourful stripey T-shirt!

He was influenced by Influenced by the works of the post-Impressionists Paul Cézanne, Gauguin, Van Gogh and Paul Signac so taking a look at these as well would help you to get a deeper look.

His Blue Nudes series feature prime examples of his technique; these demonstrate the ability to bring his eye for colour and geometry to a new medium of utter simplicity, but with playful and delightful power.

It is interesting to note that his friend the younger Picasso painted from memory and just painted an object where as Matisse payed more atention to the background, used vibrant colours always or most of the time and did not paint from memory.

Hope that helps!
Don :-)

Answer 3

Matisse loved the female nude, and the light in the South of France.

Answer 4

one theme i noticed was the facial obcurity, like putting cloths over peoples faces, and like apples and stuff.

He did this because as a boy he saw his mother kill herself in a river, when they pulled her out, her dress had come up and was covering her face, this is where his facial obscurity was rooted. odd huh!? also he was obsessed with the unconscious mind, he thought he was accessing his subconscious with his work cus all the surrealists were obsessed with subconsciousmindness!

Answer 5

if you live near to London the Tate (Brittan) has quite a few of these paintings if you look at them and not through a book you will see what they are