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Henri Matisse: The early years in Nice, 1916-1930 by Jack Cowart
Jack Cowart, Dominique Fourcade
- GenresArt
367 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1986
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
May 13, 2021
There is a quote from Renoir to Matisse in the introductory part of this book in which he says "In all truthfulness, I don’t like what you do. I’d almost like to say that you are not a good painter, or even that you are a very bad painter. But one thing prevents me from doing this: when you put black on a canvas it stays in its plane. All my life, I thought that one couldn’t use it without breaking chromatic unity of the surface. It is a ring that I have banished from my palette. As for you, using a colored vocabulary, you introduce black and it holds."
Knowing legitimately nothing about art (this is my first real venture into any literature or study on the subject (outside of museum visits)), I have to say that this quote stuck in the back of my mind going over this collection. Particularly in the first third of paintings here, Matisse uses black so strikingly sometimes to highlight the figure in the center of his work, sometimes to muddy the limits of each figures ends, sometimes as a mood or sense of time.
As the collection rolls along, chronologically, Matisse’s paintings become progressively lighter as he (as is noted in the intro) began to capture the silvery light of Nice. It’s a wonderful transition to flip through, first quickly, then with concentration on the slow metamorphosis.
I think this book does a wonderful job providing necessary context to enjoy this collection as a singular work (though that wasn’t the intention, it certainly works that way). You can really see Matisse laboring over the direction of his art. There are so many pairings of paintings of essentially the same object or figure, but in a different form. Some more detailed, some more fluid. Some grainy, others smooth. As if every day Matisse woke up in and transmitted a new reality and wanted to document each possible variation.
Again, knowing nothing, it’s strange to me this is Matisse’s least popular period. As is noted in the two essays that start the book, people often highlight Matisse’s two periods of genius right before and directly after his time in Nice. Yet, I found some of these paintings and specifically the sets of them (the fête des fleurs paintings, // nature morte, vase des fleurs, citrons, et mortier (1919) // and the piano lesson and performance portraits from 1923 and 1924) to be captivating in the way they display a clear internal reckoning — out of darkness into light, through forms, not in a straight line but up and down and all around. But, since this collection was also the first focused assembly of Matisse’s Nice period, perhaps its works were less appreciated when separated from their grander evolutionary process.
Anyway, more of this. Shame I have to give it back to the library.
Knowing legitimately nothing about art (this is my first real venture into any literature or study on the subject (outside of museum visits)), I have to say that this quote stuck in the back of my mind going over this collection. Particularly in the first third of paintings here, Matisse uses black so strikingly sometimes to highlight the figure in the center of his work, sometimes to muddy the limits of each figures ends, sometimes as a mood or sense of time.
As the collection rolls along, chronologically, Matisse’s paintings become progressively lighter as he (as is noted in the intro) began to capture the silvery light of Nice. It’s a wonderful transition to flip through, first quickly, then with concentration on the slow metamorphosis.
I think this book does a wonderful job providing necessary context to enjoy this collection as a singular work (though that wasn’t the intention, it certainly works that way). You can really see Matisse laboring over the direction of his art. There are so many pairings of paintings of essentially the same object or figure, but in a different form. Some more detailed, some more fluid. Some grainy, others smooth. As if every day Matisse woke up in and transmitted a new reality and wanted to document each possible variation.
Again, knowing nothing, it’s strange to me this is Matisse’s least popular period. As is noted in the two essays that start the book, people often highlight Matisse’s two periods of genius right before and directly after his time in Nice. Yet, I found some of these paintings and specifically the sets of them (the fête des fleurs paintings, // nature morte, vase des fleurs, citrons, et mortier (1919) // and the piano lesson and performance portraits from 1923 and 1924) to be captivating in the way they display a clear internal reckoning — out of darkness into light, through forms, not in a straight line but up and down and all around. But, since this collection was also the first focused assembly of Matisse’s Nice period, perhaps its works were less appreciated when separated from their grander evolutionary process.
Anyway, more of this. Shame I have to give it back to the library.
May 4, 2007
A great collection of some of Matisse's best work. Contains terrific photographs from the period as well.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews