Context

Henri Matisse was a French artist he was born in 1869, and passed away in 1954. Henri Matisse was well known for his use of bring colors in his paintings, and other forms of art. Matisses’ Open Window, Collioure was created in 1905 influenced by the Fauvism movement. Matisse was leader of the Fauvism movement. The group consisted of French painters that valued expression in their art. They were well known for using an unmixed color pallet and broad brush strokes in their paintings. The main artists in this group were; Matisse, Rouault, Derain, Vlaminck, Braqueand, and Dufy. Paul Gauguin, who was also a member of the Fauvism movement once said, “”If the trees look yellow to the artist, then painted a bright yellow they must be.” The quote by Gauguin brings the attention to us, because he explains that they use the bright colors they see, which was prominent, because the movements motto was to use unmixed colors. 

The painting, Open Window, Collioure was painted and based off of Southern Frances’ location of Collioure, hence the title. Matisses’ painting opened a new window 😉 in modern art era, allowing paintings and painters to take an independence from the subject it depicts. The extravagant painting is basically – besides the great use of colors and broad brush strokes – a bunch of frames in each other, which is; the literal frame, the edges of the painting, the doors framing the room, and the window framing the scenery of outside the window. Matisse was a brilliant and obviously very artistic man, mainly known for his paintings and cut outs, but also was a printmaker, a draughtsman, and made sculptures. – what a well diverse man!

“From the moment I held the box of colors in my hands, I knew this was my life. I threw myself into it like a beast that plunges towards the thing it loves.”—Henri Matisse.

Originally, Matisse started out as a Post-Impressionist artist, then later leading the Fauvism movement, Matisse could not stand impressionist artwork, he loved bright colors. Matisse was great friends with Pablo Picasso, their work was often compared to each other, because they were so similar to each other in style. The main differences between the two was that Matisses’ inspiration came from nature and visual things, and Picasso was inspired by mainly imagination. Henri Matisse loved France, throughout his entire life he lived in France, even through the war. Many know about matisse because of his large scale cut out shapes, but besides that, Matisse has many little gems like his paintings, prints, and sculptures. His famous art movement with the group of Fauvism painters in 1905 was very inspiring to viewers. It was a new type of style, and some were skeptical, but eventually this style became very popular to the art world. Henri Matisse was a great artist and personally I enjoy viewing his pieces, and his style of painting is quite satisfying to my eye. Thankfully while I was in the Nationally Gallery of Art, I came across some of his great works of art!