Artist 43: Henri Matisse

Henri Matisse was born in 1869 in France of the Fauve (wild beast!) movement. I really love his paintings because they are all so bright and bold, and the colors that he uses are intense and crazy! His paintings are really very fun, that's how I like to describe it. When I see his paintings, such as my favorite that I reference ALL THE TIME "The Green Stripe," it just makes me happy. The colors are weird, but they look right. How can a lady with a green line down the middle of her face look right? Well! He uses colors that are "incorrect" as far as realism goes, but the colors he does use are the correct shades and tints that would be similar to real life colors. I'm sure if you saw this in black and white, you wouln't have a clue the colors he used were so, well, wrong. Even the background is interesting, yet so simple. The colors help to accent the figure in the front, not to draw away from it, yet you find yourself looking at the background also. His paintings really do look incredibly simple, and at the same time, complex and detailed. I believe he was able to create the illusion of his pictures being very detailed by the paint texture and by the certain colors he placed by each other. Everything about his paintings is an inspiration to me and I have studied many of them. That being said, I am not nearly done being in awe of his pictures and revealing his influence in my own.