l'Orangerie - more Matisse images
Henri Matisse 'Blue odalisque with white skirt' 1921-1923No prizes for guessing that Matisse was a 'boobs man'. In fact, no prizes ever on this blog. I'm too cheap!
You will also notice in these Matisse pictures from the Orangerie that patterned walls were meticulously captured with his brush - though they are not the focus element of these compositions, they certainly make their presence known! Perhaps the respectful representation Matisse has for wall coverings and fabrics explains his late career use of cut paper as a medium in itself.
Henri MATISSE 'Odalisque in grey pants' 1927
If Van Gogh made glorious yellow all his own through his many sunflower and haystack compositions - Matisse has to be credited for bringing vivid, brighter-than-you-thought-possible red onto canvas. Of course, every colour gets the bright treatment by Matisse eventually. Of his wall-sized torn and scissor-cut paper compositions (made towards the end of his life when he could no longer paint) art critic Robert Hughes once said that you can get a sun tan just standing next to them. These were composed with the most vivid, almost dayglo, yellows and oranges fathomable to chemists and printers of the time (for an example, look for 'The Snail' 1952 in the online gallery at this link.) Before this, however, Matisse revelled in bright fabric, patterned walls and decorated screens:
Henri MATISSE 'Odalisque with red pants' 1924-25
With so much going on, the woman could merely be another element of the composition rather than the subject.
My apologies, the excitement of seeing this painting did make my hands shake a bit for some of these images.
Henri MATISSE 'Woman with violin' 1921-1923
So much of her style of dress still looks contemporary.
Very Picasso-like, those eyebrows
posted by Slartibartfast @ Tuesday, March 27, 2007
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