Henri Matisse

(1869-1954)

Henri Émile Benoît Matisse was born to a middle class family in Le Cateau in northern France on December 31, 1869. He attended a secondary school in Saint-Quentin from 1882 to 1887. After a year of legal studies he returned to Saint-Quentin and became a clerk in a law office. It was not until his early twenties, while recovering from a severe an attack of the appendicitis, that he began to paint. At first he copied the colored reproduction in a box of oils given to him by his mother. Before long, he was decorating the rooms of his relatives in La Cateau. In 1891 he left law and returned to Paris to become a professional artist

In order to prepare for himself for the entrance examination at the official École des Beaux-Arts, he enrolled in the privately run Académie Julian, his first teacher being strictly academic and relatively conservative. In 1892 Matisse left Académie Julian and attended the workshop of Gustave Moreau at the École de Beaux-Arts, without being required to take the entrance exam. Moreau proved to be a liberal instructor and instead of imposing his own style on his students, he encouraged them to develop their own. In 1899 Matisse was forced to leave the workshop by Fernand Cormon, a dogmatic painter who had replaced Moreau after his death.

After getting married in 1898 to a young woman by the name of Amélie Parayre, Matisse studied some more contemporary forms of art, impressionism more than any other. He furthered his research by buying paintings by Paul Cézanne, Paul Gauguin, and a drawing by Vincent van Gogh. It was through them that he experienced his true artistic liberation. Often accompanied by his close friend, Albert Marquet, Matisse began to paint outdoor scenes in the Luxembourg Gardens in Paris. After 1899 he gradually became popular among Parisian circles where modern art was being produced and discussed.

In 1900, Matisse was obliged to accept work on the decoration of the Grand Palais because of his economic hardship. His wife also opened up a dress shop to help their state financial crisis. During part of 1902, after having recovered from a severe attack of bronchitis, Matisse, his three children-Marguerite, Jean, and Pierre - and his wife, all returned to Bohain. In 1903 and 1904, Matisse became familiar with the pointillist painting of Henri Edmond Cross and Pail Signac. He adopted their technique and modified it repeatedly using broader strokes to free himself from what he called the “tyranny” of pointillism. By 1905, through his newly adopted techniques, Matisse produced some of his finest works, including a striking picture of his wife, “Green Stripe.” During the same year Matisse and his artist colleagues, including Maurice de Vlaminck and André Derain exhibited their similar paintings at the Salon d’Automne. A Paris critic by the name of Louis Vauxcelles called the group “les fauves” (the wild beasts) because of the extremes of emotionalism in which they seemed to have indulged, their use of vivid colors, and their distortion of shapes. Thus Fauvism, the first important “ism’s” of 20th-century painting was born, with Matisse as its leader.

Almost immediately, Matisse’s financial situation took a turn for the better. The Stein family in Paris became Matisse collectors. Among the many important commissions he received was that of a Russian collector who requested mural panels illustrating both dance and music. Matisse often applied his painting techniques to his bronze sculptures. Like his drawings, his sculptures show the same profound shapes seen in his paintings.

From the 1920s until his death, Matisse was mainly a resident of Nice, painting local scenes using a thin application of color. After the outbreak of World War II, Matisse became increasingly active as a graphic artist, notably with his works for Henry de Montherlant’s Pasiphaé, Pierre Reverdy’s Visages, and Charles Baudelaire’s Fleurs du mal. During the last years of his life, he lived a rather secluded life. He was separated from his wife and his children had all grownup and spread out. He underwent an operation for an intestinal disorder, and was bedridden much of the time after 1941. In 1851 he completed his Chapelle du Rosaire for the local nuns who nursed him during his illness. Matisse often worked on huge colored-paper cutouts arranged casually, but with an unfailing eye for design, on a canvas surface. On November 3, 1954 Matisse succumbed to his old age and illnesses.

By the early 20th century, the European powers had establiushed colonial empires throughout most of the world. They completed a process that had begun in the Renaissance. Africa was split up between Britain, France, Germany, Belgium, Italy, Spain, and Portugal. Britain ruled India in Asia, the Dutch ruled Indonesia, and the French ruled Indochina. Japan was rising as a new and formidable Pacific power that would stake its claims to empire in the 1930s. The devastation of World War I brought widespread misery, social disruption, and economic collapse. The Great Depression of the 1930s was a consequence of it. Europe collapsed, especially Germany. This leads to World War II. War brought misery.