Henri Matisse
Henri Matisse was another artist that inspired me throughout this course.
Biography
Henri Matisse was born in Nord, France. His father was a successful grain merchant. Matisse was the first born in his family. He was born December 31, 1869. In 1887 he went to study law. Two years later is when he started to pain art. His mom was the one who got him to start painting. When he became very ill his mother brought him art supplies and while he was getting better he started painting. He found painting to be a paradise. He decided to become an artist after that experience. In 1891 he went to Paris to further his art education. Matisse painted still lives and landscapes and was decent at it. He was influenced by Jean- Baptiste and artists like Edouard Manet. He was also inspired by Japanese art. When Matisse was an art student he made four copies of Chardin's work. In 1896 and 1897 Matisse started to study impressionism. John Peter Russel was Matisse's teacher. He introduced him to the work of Van Gogh. Russel taught Matisse color theory. He had a daughter with one of his models in 1894. Matisse had five paintings accepted into a famous exhibit in France. Two of those paintings were bought by the state in 1896. In 1898 he got married and had two kids. His daughter and wive were frequently models in his work. In 1898 he went to London to study more paintings. When Matisse got back he started buying artwork of artists that he really liked. He go into debt because he could not afford the artwork. He had a Van Gogh drawing. From 1898 to 1901 Matisse's work started to slump. He tried his hand in sculpture and read famous writers. In 1906 Matisse met Pablo Picasso. The two became life long friends but also rivals. They had a different style of art Matisse painted more of nature while Picasso pained more from his imagination. Matisse was know for his use of color. He was knows as a print maker and sculpture. But he was know mostly as a painter. He was one of the three artists that was know for revolutionizing and developing the plastic arts. He was mostly a fauvist artists. But he also kept doing the the classic French painting. He mastered expressive language and color. He painted over 50 years. He was the leading figure of modern art. After Paris in 1917 Matisse moved to the French Riviera. His work was more relaxed and softer. The art was very similar to the post World War I art. In the 1920's Matisse talked to other artist. Not just French but artists all over Europe. Even a few Americans. In the 1930 his work was more bold and simpler. In 1939 his wife of 41 years and him got separated. In 1941 he had surgery and used a wheelchair from then on. In the 1941 he started working with paper collages. His did a set called Blue Nudes. He also did some graphic arts and some black and white book covers in the 1940's. Matisse's first daughter was tortured almost to death and sent to a concentration camp. He just barely escaped being imprisoned. One of his art students was not so lucky and sentenced to another concentration camp. He died December 3, 1954. He was the leading figure of modern art.
Impact on Arthur Pearcy's thinking
The impact on Arthur Pearcy's thinking was that Matisse was strong artist. He changed the way of modern art. He was bed ridden but he kept at it which was inspiring. He made Arthur's thinking about art completely change. Now art needed more bright colors stronger brush strokes. For some reason Arthur had a strong connection to Henri Matisse for some reason. Matisse lived through world wars. He saw some of the worst slaughters ever in the world. Matisse's works were some of Arthur's favorite works. He liked the use of the brighter color. The fauvism movement changed Arthur's thinking of art. He liked the brighter more vivid colors. He did some very pivotal and controversial paintings and from then on Arthur thought that art should look more like that.