Tag Archives: John Elderfield

MATISSE: Cut,Paste & Taste

That Matisse would abandon oil painting and adopt a new technique so late in his career was a surprise to many people, although it need not have been. Paper cutouts were, of course, convenient for a semi-invalid, but Matisse had … Continue reading

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MATISSE: War Years and the Morals of Color

Certainly, the war years seems to bring out some ambiguous behavior on the part of French artists in occupied France. On the one hand, it greatly reduced the competition from foreign sources and citizens not of the “vieux souche” , … Continue reading

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MATISSE: Line Dance With Color

Matisse emerged from WWII with a reputation among living painters second only to that of Picasso. The fresh interest in Matisse was stimulated by a late flowering in many phases of his art- drawings, book designs, and oil paintings- which … Continue reading

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CONFUSION SAYS: Matisse and the Passion of Constant Motion

His whole career, said Matisse, could be thought of as a progress toward clarity and simplification: “A constant struggle for complete expression with a minimum of elements. ” Actually, his career had many meanings, as any great artist’s must, but … Continue reading

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MATISSE: “Abnormal to the Last Degree”

The man who created this exotic and compelling art was not easy to know. In 1913, the New York Times dispatched Clara T. MacChesney to interview “The King of the Fauves” in his home outside Paris. Aware that Matisse’s work … Continue reading

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MATISSE:CUTOUTS BETWEEN REASON and FEELING

Ever simplifying and ever synthesizing; younger at eighty than at thirty, Matisse sat in his wheel chair, put aside paintbrush for scissors, and filled his sunset years with patterns of pure color. … “Matisse was the most important of the … Continue reading

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PAPER TIGERS : Hunting Traces of Solitude And GAIETY

In art sometimes, the more things change, the more nothing is the same. The paper cutouts were Matisse’s final flowering; a last expression of this articulation of traces of solitude and gaiety, what he called “the eternal conflict between drawing … Continue reading

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HENRI SCISSORHANDS

It was the final flowering of Henri Matisse. He was ever simplifying, ever synthesizing, acting younger at eighty than he was at thirty. He sat in his wheel chair and put aside paintbrush for scissors, filling his sunset years with … Continue reading

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MATISSE SCULPTURE: Static Mass Into Dynamic Emblem

Henri Matisse did not concern himself only with painting, when what would be termed “fauvism” was coming forth in the summer of 1905 when he was in Collioure with Andre Derain. He also drew continually, and pondered the possibilities of … Continue reading

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BONNARD & LIBERATED FROM GRAVITY: ENDLESS SUMMER

The intense freshness of “the first moving instant vision” provoked by an object. But actually to copy that object increased the distance from that vision. There is always the danger,Pierre Bonnard felt, of the artist’s becoming caught by the incidentals … Continue reading

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