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oldpaintings

After Rehearsal, c.1922 by Annie Rose Laing (Scottish, 1869--1946)

impressionim-paintings

Pianist and Checker Players

Artist: Henri Matisse (French, 1869-1954)

Date: 1924

Medium: Oil on canvas

Collection: National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, United States

Matisse and Post-Impressionism

Matisse soon took centre stage as a prominent Post-Impressionist artist, achieving recognition through his development of Fauvism. The word Fauvism derives from the French ‘Les Fauves’, meaning ‘The Willd Beasts’. The Fauvist movement in France sought to break away from Cubism, another Post-Impressionist art form, in favour of a focus on colour.

The Fauvist experiments with colour drew on the works of Vincent Van Gogh and Paul Gauguin, among other Post-Impressionists, combining with the Neo-Impressionist techniques developed by Georges Seurat. Matisse developed his technique during the summer of 1905, which he spent in Collioure with André Derain.

Over this period, Matisse began using bright light and pure colours in his work, even if they did not represent the subject he was painting. He became known as the “chief Fauve”, with the word Fauvism coming to define the eclectic collection of artists who adopted elements of Matisse’s style.

Matisse believed that colour should be the foundation of painting, both as a means of expression as well as decoration. He viewed painting and art as a form of therapy, “a soothing, calming influence on the mind”.

newsfromsomewhere

A performance of Philip Corner's "Piano Activities" during the Fluxus Internationale Festspiele Neuester Musik in Wiesbaden, Germany, on September 1, 1962. It involved artists including George Maciunas, Emmett Williams, Benjamin Patterson, Dick Higgins, and Alison Knowles destroying a piano - an action was partly born out of financial necessity to remove a bulky, broken instrument from the venue.