Henri Matisse
This past Saturday I visited the Baltimore Museum of Art once more. I purchased a membership so I can come and go as I please without fee so soon I imagine they will tire of seeing me. I spent a great deal of time looking at the Matisses in the Cone Collection again and also looked at the Jazz pieces on exhibit. The Matisses are really quite extraordinary. What he does with space and depth is breathtaking. Take, for example, the piece above. The pink flowered carpet. That yellow line. The viewer knows the woman is sitting but barely. The carpet appears very flat. There is barely a plane change creating depth (in fact, it may not even be noticeable in this repro). Could we really sit the way she is sitting? What is keeping her there? Yet, he convinces us and at first glance we are unaware of the flatness of the painting. Matisse is a master of twisting and turning space. He does it so that it is almost not noticeable and his paintings, because of that, are kept in a state of flux. The space is believable but there is something just a bit off if you look closer. A bit off and a bit magical.
posted by amy boras @ 6:47 AM
2 Comments:
I think Matisse was capable of drawing the correct perspective but I think he uses perspective to throw things off a bit. I think this goes back to Cezanne and his still lifes. Cezanne, often referred to as the "father of modern art" and sometimes of cubism was the first to do this. I think that it all has to do with the evolution of art and how the painter changed the way the viewer (and the painter) sees the world.
I agree with Artgirl, Matisse was certainly more than capable of drawing with normal perspective, but this would have been boring. He enjoyed playing with space, flattening, showing depth with color. It makes for a much more interesting composition.
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