Henri Matisse

The Gulf of Saint-Tropez, 1904 (Pointillism).

Henri Matisse (Le Cateau-Cambresis 1869 - Nice 1954) French Fauvist painter and sculptor. Matisse and Renoir were friends with a common bond; they loved color, beauty, and painting. [1] He also had the influence of Edouard Manet, Paul Gauguin, Paul Cezanne and Vincent Van Gogh. Matisse was an influential figure of the 20th century, he had a great impact on future movements of the time, and on artists like Jackson Pollock and Georgia O'Keeffe.

Matisse made copies of many paintings in the Louvre to learn painting. He was more than just a Fauvist. He also experiment with other techniques like Cubism and Pointillism. In his old age, he worked with painted paper and scissors, making collages.

The leader of the "Fauves" was Matisse, who had arrived at the Fauve style after earlier experimenting with the various Post-Impressionist styles of Van Gogh, Paul Gauguin, and Cézanne, and the Neo-Impressionism of Seurat, Cross, and Signac. These influences inspired him to reject traditional three-dimensional space and seek instead a new picture space defined by the movement of color planes. [2] Fauvism, one of the movements which appeared prior to Cubism, began around 1900 and continued beyond 1910.

Matisse was composing paintings, not just painting things. Color was how he conceived and structured his image. The National Gallery of Art.

Henri Matisse wrote Notes d´un peintre in 1908.

The Window, 1916.

The Window: In a letter Matisse described this picture: "Through the window of the drawing room one sees the green of the garden and a black tree trunk, a basket of forget-me-nots on the table, a garden chair and a rug." - [3] Estimated value of this painting: $60 million.