Matisse: Concepts of Colour

Excellent study day organised by the London Art History Society on Matisse.

The course was led by Ben Street who delivered four great lectures without notes using a well thought out slides to take us through the story. The day was split up well and, although I thought I knew Matisse’s work quite well, I learnt a lot.

We began by looking at Matisse’s early work, although he came to art relatively late in life for an artist, including the start of Fauvism and his role in it. We also discussed how his work doesn’t show the usual subjects of the time such as the city but chose more traditional subjects such as landscapes and still lives albeit in a radical style with strange colour combinations.

We then looked at his most radical period from 1912-17 and how this was fuelled by travelling to Algiers and the role of two collectors. We talked about how he painted “Dancers” and “Music” for Serge Shchukin, the Russian textile magnet.

In the afternoon we started by looking at Matisse’s sculptures which he said he did as a break from painting but we looked at how it influenced his painting and kept a sense of the made in the work still showing figer marks. Much of his sculpture was not known at the time and has been cast in bronze since he died.

We ended by looking at the final stage of his career when illness stopped Matisse painting and he moved to the radical art of cut outs. This was more than collages as he painted the paper he then cut out into shapes and arranged in pictures and patterns.  He called this a second childhood. We also looked at his design for the Chapel da Rossaire de Vence where he designed all aspects of the chapel from stained glass to vestments.

All in all a fascinating day and a lovely break from the bustle of Christmas.