Matisse's Le Bonheur De Vivre example essay topic

Henri Matisse Henri Matisse was born December 31st, 1869 to two store owners, Emile and Heloise Matisse. His father wanted him to be a lawyer, so later on in life he could takeover the family business. They sent him to Henri Martin Grammar School where he studied to be a lawyer. There was a hint of artist in Henri because while working as a lawyer's assistant he took up a drawing course (Essers 7). It was for curtain design but it seemed to be destiny for a lawyer's assistant to take up such a distant hobby as drawing.

At the age of 21, his intestinal operation led to appendicitis. Henri was on bed rest for most of 1890 and to help him occupy his time, his mother bought him a set of paints. That was the turning point in Henri's life. He decided to give up his career in law for a career in art. Matisse himself said, "It was as if I had been called. Henceforth I did not lead my life.

It led me" (Getlein 80). Soon after, Henri began to take classes at the Academie Julian to prepare himself for the entrance examination at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts (Essers 7). Henri failed his first attempt, leading to his departure from the Academie. He then enrolled at the Ecole des Arts and that is where his friendship with Albert Marque t began. They started working alongside of Gustave Moreau, a distinguished teacher at Ecole des Beaux-Arts, even though they had not been accepted (Essers 12). In 1895, Henri finally passed the Beaux-Arts entrance examination and his pathway to his new career choice had officially begun.

Henri studied under Moreau at the Beaux-Arts. Moreau obviously impressed with his student, told him, "You were born to simplify painting" (Getlein 80). It was at the Beaux-Arts where he met another Moreau student named Derain. Matisse and Derain would grow to become friends and future trendsetters. During a visit to Brittany, Matisse discovered Impressionism (Essers 8). The works of Cezanne and Van Gogh influenced him.

When he returned, he exhibited his first painting, Dinner Table, in 1897. This was his first painting of impressionistic style. Matisse's art began to concentrate on landscapes, still life, and domestic interiors. Still life is a theme Henri would follow for the rest of his career. Henri tried to return to the Beaux-Arts after the release of Dinner Table. Moreau was no longer there and his successor, Common, told Henri to leave because he had passed the age limit of 30 (Essers 12).

Matisse then began studying at a school started by a fellow artist and friend Camillo because he was not confident enough in his ability to be an independent artist. In 1903, Matisse started accepting commissions that took a toll on him. He became so sick that he though to give up painting. This is when he produced Studio under the Eaves.

Matisse told his son, "That was the transition from valeur's to colors" (Essers 12). The next year he read Paul Signac's "From Delacroix to Neo-Impressionism". Matisse began to move further away from the techniques and style of Impressionism. The famous summer of 1905 was spent in Collioure with Derain and Maurice de Vlaminck. This summer marked the most important turning point in Matisse's art career. During the summer, they experimented with the pointillism techniques of Seurat, but towards the end of the summer, the three artists had moved in a very different direction.

The paintings produced in Collioure rejected Impression and began a new movement. They exhibited their works in the Salon d'Automne, which they also founded in 1903. The paintings, View of Collioure and Le Bonheur de Vivre received loud criticism from nearly everyone who had seen them. Louis Vaux celles, gave them the name the "Fauces" (Flam 79). They were nicknamed the "wild beasts" because of their use and experimentation with bright, unnatural colors. Their grass was not green, but yellow or orange.

Skies were not blue, but pink or yellow. Even though European art collectors turned away from his art, he was able to attract attention from wealthy American art collectors and this exhibit helped send his prices through the roof (Essers 14, Getlein 80). In 1909, he attained financial security and invited his father to his home to see how well he done without a career in law. His relationship with one his art collectors, The Stein Family, was a very influential one.

Through them, he met Pablo Picasso. They began a separate relationship and remained friends and rivals throughout life, trading paintings and art from time to time. Sarah Stein encouraged Matisse to start his own school. Matisse said, .".. I sweated blood to make lions of these sheep. It demanded a great deal of energy, and I wondered what I really wanted to be, a professor or a painter?

And so I closed the atelier down". (Essers 24) It lasted a mere 2 years but Matisse became frustrated with teaching and working on his own collection at the same time. Matisse's family was supportive of his career. He married Amelie Par ayre, whom he had three children with. She was very devoted to her husband's career and was even one of his frequent models who wore costumes and struck poses as needed (Essers 38). In the home, she would keep the children quiet to keep from disturbing Matisse's concentration (Esser 39).

His son Pierre chose a career an art; he moved to New York and became a prominent art dealer. Even though the World War I affected Matisse's life, his art never touched on it on any political subjects (Essers 44). His family home was destroyed in a German attack, he could not find out any information of his mother in Bo hain, he had two sons in the war, and his brother was taken captive by the Germans. He even requested to be called for military service but he was not chosen.

In World War II, his art remained further untouched. In 1944 he weathered more family trials when his wife, and then his daughter, Marguerite, were arrested by the Gestapo for their involvement in the French Resistance (Essers 77). He chose to remain in France during the war even though he had a visa set for Brazil (Essers 41). Henri remarked to his son, "I was to have gone to Rio de Janeiro on June 8th, via Mo dane and Geneva, to spend a month there- but when I saw events had taken a turn for the worse I had them return the fare for my ticket. I would have felt like a deserter. If everyone of any value left, what would remain of France?" (Essers 77) Matisse worked on important commissions throughout his career.

He even died working on a commission for Lady Rockefeller. Sergei Shchukin began his Matisse collection in 1908. He was wealthy and commissioned the paintings La Musique and La Danse, 2 of Matisse's biggest paintings (Essers 28). He also designed the settings for the plays "The Nightingale" and "Rouge et Noir". Henri journeyed through different art types, he drew book illustrations, he decorated the Merion and after he had his operation due to duodenal cancer, he began using painted sheets of cut-up paper on his canvasses (Getlein 80). He was too weak to stand and paint at his easel.

He created paper cutouts in the same vivid, strong colors and daring compositions known from his paintings. He had an assistant and could work lying in bed or sitting comfortably in an armchair. Once his cutouts received major recognition, there was a temporary stop in his painting career (Essers 90). Henri Matisse liked his paintings to be real and decorative. His subjects usually included the human body, still life, or domestic interior (Getlein 80).

He was hardworking and dedicated to his career. Later in life his paintings began to reflect more of his life, they became "tranquil, peaceful and serene" (Essers 77). Matisse was lucky enough to sum up his career in his own words, "Abstraction rooted in reality" (Essers 90). On November 3, 1954, Henri Matisse died of a heart attack.

Matisse was apart of the avant-garde expressionism style. According to Getlein, "younger artists referred to themselves as avant-garde... bolder artists going first into uncharted territory and waiting for others to catch up... ' battle' was to advance the progress of art against the resistance of conservative forces". (Getlein 504) Expression is defined by Getlein as "any art that stresses the artist's emotional and psychological expression, often with bold colors and distortions of form" (Getlein 562). Expressionism came about when artist chose to reveal their emotional and intense feelings to the world through their art.

That was their main goal. Expressionism is directly linked to German and a few other European artists in the early 20th century. Expressionism "describes any style where the artist's subjective feelings take precedence over objective observation" (Getlein 505). Matisse's style was expressive, but he was more closely associated with a smaller branch of expressionism called fauvism.

Friends Derain, Matisse, and Vlaminck formed the "essential triangle" of the fauces (Flam 79). It started when they displayed their results of the time spent in Collioure at the Salon d'Automne. Derain's View of Collioure and Matisse's Le Bonheur de Vivre helped earn them the nicknames "the fauces" and the exhibit where there room was became known as "Le Cage". The View of Collioure used unmixed pigments; the grass was orange and directly contrasted with the blue used for the sky (Getlein 505).

His painting revealed his emotions instead of the reality of the actual scene. In Matisse's Le Bonheur de Vivre, the colors used took on a life of their own. They were no longer used to just to determine objects in the picture; they were now used to express the feeling of the picture. Fauvism was very important to the world of painting, because now artist were no longer confined to using colors only to depict the natural world (Getlein 505). Fauvism's chief emphasis was not on the "descriptive representation, but on pictor al construction and the abstract formal means of painting itself" (Flam 215).

Matisse was so tightly connected to fauvism that for the rest of his life he was referred to as the king of the fauces, even though complete fauvism had died out. Matisse hated being called a fauve, but Matisse later observed, 'Fauve painting is not everything, but it is the foundation of everything' (Flam 215). Besides the "fauces", other expressionists were Vasili Kandinsky with his Der Blue Reiter group, Pablo Picasso, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner and the Die Bruce (Getlein 505-06). The leader of the group was Henri Matisse, who had arrived at the Fauve style after careful, critical study of the masters of post-impressionism Paul Gauguin, Vincent van Gogh, and Georges Seurat.

Matisse's methodical studies led him to reject traditional renderings of three-dimensional space and to seek instead a new picture space defined by movement of color (Flam 215). Most of the artists later abandoned Fauvism for Cubism, led by Picasso. Matisse continued to stay along the lines of fauvism, he did not completely leave the form, and it was still evident in post-fauvism paintings. Henri's Le Bonheur de Vivre was probably the most important work of his career. It marked the end of his Impressionist style and the beginning of his fauvism / expressionist era. Most know the painting as Le Joie de Vivre or its translation The Joy of Life.

This name was given by art collector Albert Barnes, who held the painting behind closed doors for 72 years until his collection was opened up in to the public in 1993 (Flam 157). Henri was inspired by numerous influences for this painting. From poems to his travels, a little bit of everything went into Le Joie de Vivre. Most feel like the painting is an interpretation of Stephanie Mallarme's "Apres-midi d'un Fine."These nymphs, I want to perpetuate.

So clear, Their light carnation, that it drifts on the air Drowsy with tufted slumbers. Did I love a dream?" (Flam 156) These poetic lines seem perfect to read aloud when viewing Le Joie de Vivre. The round of dancers was inspired by his experience with the Catalan anglers dancing on the beach of Collioure (Flam 23). In addition, Matisse throughout much of his career used this very image of the dance; it even received its own separate painting called La Danse. The Joy of Life uses very non-traditional colors to represent natural forms in the picture. No one color is used to represent one object as well.

Pink is used for the sky, the trees, the water, and some of the bodies. Green is used on the bodies, the tree and their stumps. Yellow is used for some of the bodies as well as for the ground and parts of the water. Blue is used for the water and parts of the ground. He used his colors in ways that it would convey where his state of mind was. The Joy of Life was not real, but an imaginary place in the mind where he wanted to get to but could not reach.

Matisse chose to avoid central focus points until this painting; he placed his dancing ring in the center so it would be easier to animate the rest of the scene (Flam 154). The structure of Le Joie de Vivre is "circular and fluid... constantly echoed in the undulating curves of the individual figures and trees" (Flam 154). Matisse took previous nude figure drawings and repositioned them in picture. He wanted it to look as if the figures were interacting with one another. The positions of the nymphs help the viewer to bring motion to the scene. Matisse places importance on the size of the figures, their sizes are determined by the picture's need for them (Flam 156).

The images are full of sexuality, sensual, and clear, yet we do not know what their relationship is to one another. Le Joie de Vivre is a very dreamlike picture, which is why it has been so hard to interpret. Matisse commented on his painting, 'What I dream of is an art of balance, of purity and serenity, devoid of troubling or depressing subject matter... a soothing, calming influence on the mind, something like a good armchair that provides relaxation from physical fatigue' (Flam 156). The painting makes it easy to tell what Henri was feeling, but not what he meant. Was it supposed to be taken as seen or is their hidden meaning behind the scenes? The iconography of the picture could represent art in the view of the fauvists.

Fauvists wanted to be free from tradition and natural colors. They wanted to be free to explore their world of colors as they saw fit. Fauvists and expressionists did not like to be held to strict rules when it came to painting. It could be that Le Bonheur de Vivre was a state in which they where trying to reach, but in reality could get never get there.

On the other hand, could it be a place where they could only reach in their dreams? Critics have struggled with the interpretation of Matisse's painting since the first display. That may have been Matisse's meaning after all.

Bibliography

Essers, Volk Mar. Henri Matisse, 1869-1954: Master of Colour.
Taschen: Koln, 1987.
Flam, Jack. Matisse: The Dance. National Gallery of Art: Washington D.C., 1993.
Flam, Jack. Matisse: The Man and His Art, 1869-1918.
Cornell University Press: Ithaca, 1986.
Getlein, Mark. Gilbert's Living With Art: Sixth Ed. McGraw Hill: New York, 2002.