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I have read about Henri Matisse lately. Henri Matisse (born December 31, 1869, Le Cateau, Picardy, France—died November 3, 1954, Nice) was an artist often regarded as the most important French painter of the 20th century. He was the leader of the Fauvist movement about 1900, and he pursued the expressiveness of color throughout his career (Britannica). He was also famous for drawing with scissors.
Henri Matisse: The Cut-outs
I want to do research again about positive and negative space. If Matisse does his work with cutouts, I want to experiment with Linocut. My previous experience with Lino was not good because my hands and shoulder had a hard time dealing with it. I chose form instead of lino because it is softer than lino. First, I observed plants from my little garden and drew them with ink.
Then, I used scanning paper to convert them to form and carve.
I used poster color to print them. It’s not specific material for printing.
I kinda liked the texture but they did not turn out as I had supposed. Therefore, I did it again with paper like Matisse.
“Fauvism is when there is a red” - said Henri Matisse.
Here are things I have realized when cutting papers: complex curves have their own narration but do not work with scissors. I should make curves simpler. That moment made me understand Matisse’s saying “I don’t paint things. I paint the difference between things”.
Only when I can recognize the difference between things, do I recognize the most significant characteristic of them. That is a key of simplification.
When I don’t use color based on an object’s natural appearance, I feel I have more room to think about what I want to tell. It helps me to choose elements reasonably. For instance, on the piece on the right, it is “plant needs the sun to live”. There are different patterns on Matisse’s pictures, which makes pictures more interesting and decorative. We can apply them in the field of design.
I started this research with leaves in my garden so I also wanted to use fauvism color to describe abundant plants in this busy garden. When I put the final green piece on the picture, I just realized that green one was like a running person. Then, I chose some figures from ballet paintings by Degas because I love their movement and I used cutouts to describe the movements.
I studied the gestures from the above paintings to make this one.
As I said, when I practiced this exercise, I had more room to create a story for the piece I was doing. For this picture, I thought about when people do something with their enthusiasm, they will shine like stars.
One more thing, I also studied the way Matisse used red to describe two dimensions perspectives in his paintings.
Harmony in Red
The red studio
And here are mine:
I just wanted to do about positive and negative spaces initially. However, I have gained more than that at the end including how to simplify shape, tell stories and make movements.
Among master artists that I have read about, I think I love Matisse the most. I find joy and liveliness in him. His works let me know how to create a pure and tranquil painting without boredom.
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