Matisse and Fauvism

Matisse and Fauvism

BONHEUR DE VIVRE, 1905-1906
Henri Matisse
oil on canvas
The Barnes Foundation, Merion, Pennsylvania

In 1905, Henri Matisse lead the Fauve movement in France, characterized by its “spontaneity and roughness of execution� (Perez-Tibi) as well as use of raw color straight from the palette to the canvas. Roughly received by the art world, it spawned various reactions: criticism of violence and laud of avant-garde techniques. Matisse did not set out to create the movement from scratch, however. As Jack Flam, in the chapter “Construction and Color, 1904-1906� of his book Matisse: The Man and his Art, points out, Matisse arrived in Collioure, a French vacation spot in the Mediterranean, in the summer of 1905 seeking to combine two distinct techniques of painting: the calm, restrained Neo-Impressionism and the spontaneous style of Vincent Van Gogh. Both styles appealed to Matisse, although to different sides of his painting capabilities. Neo-Impressionism offered order and restraint – natural elements of the beautiful Mediterranean paradise – and thus ample subject matter. Van Gogh’s use of vivid color and violent construction appealed to Matisse’s urge to capture scenes with free use of paint and imagination. And thus it was “Matisse’s ambition to…combine…these various elements…by constructing form and space and light simultaneously through color� (Flam 123). As he experimented with these elements in Collioure, Matisse developed the now famous style Fauvism, visible in the painting The Open Window. The style is most broadly characterized by the use of raw color and violent brushstrokes to capture a subject or scene. Another painting Matisse completed during this summer of 1905 was View of Collioure, also a characteristic work of Fauvism in its raw color and disregard for the smaller details of the view. Both of these two paintings of the landscape in the French Mediterranean present a distinct development towards the spontaneous and uninhibited style, though still unlabeled, in Matisse’s painting career.

However, although these paintings were completed in the summer, it was not until fall of 1905 that Matisse’s bold paintings received the once infamous, though now famous, label of Fauvism. At the Salon d’Automne on October 18, 1905, Matisse exhibited a total of eight oil paintings and two watercolors from the past summer months in Collioure, including The Open Window. Along with the works by Matisse’s friends, of a similar nature, they were “criticized for their excessively bright colors, eccentricity, and alleged structural incoherence� (Flam 140). It was in the midst of this criticism that the name “Fauve� is believed to have been coined by the famed art critic Louis Vauxcelles, writing to describe the rogue painters. And thus, the movement was officially born.

Despite the uproar over the “wild child� Matisse and his followers at Salon d’Automne, Matisse did not let the criticism impede his painting; he instead used it as incentive to paint. He applied himself with greater fervor and enthusiasm to his new style, choosing to paint a landscape so big he rented the Couvent des Oiseaux to accommodate his large canvas. The process by which Matisse completed this painting, Le Bonheur de Vivre, is nearly as staggering as the work itself. Below are three of the preliminary studies Matisse completed before tackling the huge canvas of Le Bonheur de Vivre, which is sometimes called the quintessential Fauve work because it combines the roughness of landscape with wild, nude women – a synthesis of human form and nature with wild color and design. The so-called blueprint for the work was one of Matisse’s paintings from that summer, “Landscape at Collioure,� below, a colorful depiction of the forest and far-off beach. Matisse subsequently refined this painting as he reproduced it with figures in both the oil study and the pencil study shown below, before he enlarged it on the new canvas, and added the numerous nude women lounging in the grass and dancing on the beach. The result was the voluptuous yet raw painting, Le Bonheur de Vivre. As Pierre Schneider, author of Matisse, concludes, “This picture does not differ from many of the landscapes painted during the summer of 1905� (Schneider 242), a rather obvious conclusion given the fact that it was taken from Landscape of Collioure. More importantly that Schneider's conclusion, this relationship brings to light the true development of the artist’s Fauvist style as he fused color with style, landscape with women. This work fully encompasses the vital characteristics of Fauvism, and thus becomes the arena through which the paradox of Matisse’s depictions of women in Collioure and his paintings of Zorah in Morocco are most easily visible.

LANDSCAPE AT COLLIOURE, 1905
Henri Matisse
oil on canvas
Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen

OIL STUDY FOR LE BONHEUR DE VIVRE, 1905
Henri Matisse
oil on canvas
Private Collection

STUDY FOR LE BONHEUR DE VIVRE, 1905
Henri Matisse
pencil and ink on paper
Private Collection