As I was in the North of France with my family, we went to
visit the Matisse museum in Le Cateau-Cambrésis – his birth place.
Palais Fénelon, home of the Matisse museum
The collection, exhibited in chronological order, counts 170
works. It is interesting to see the evolution of his work throughout his
career. You can view some of the works on the website of the museum (link at
the end of this post).
During the first years, when he was learning the craft in
the art studio of Gustave Moreau, Matisse’s palette was still full of earth
colours and he was also copying still life paintings by Chardin.
Matisse then explored Divisionism, after meeting Signac in Saint-Tropez
in 1904. The painting was slowly created by the juxtaposition of coloured dots
and the final effect relied on optical mixing of colours, when the painting is
look at from a distance. But Matisse found the technique too burdensome and
only kept from it the pure colours.
Another room showed works from the Fauvism period, a movement
he created with a group of painters in 1905: Marquet, Manguin, Camoin, Puy,
Derain, Vlaminck, Braque, Dufy, Friez, Valtat, Van Dongen and Rouault. The
trademark of the group was bright and pure colours used to express sentiments
rather than depict reality.
One of Matisse's sculpture in the courtyard
Then came the paintings done with flat colours and
simplified lines. Matisse was always looking for a sensation of calm and
balance in his work. A feature of the artist’s work is how he uses black: to
create lines but also in planes, as any other colours. In his writings and interviews,
he made the point that black was a colour. He even went as far as
declaring that he was using black as a "colour of light rather than a colour of obscurity".
Matisse's palette
Towards the end of his life, Matisse developed a unique
technique with gouache cut-outs to create his works. The museum has some fine
examples from this period.
Matisse also worked on the Chapelle in Vence (South of
France) that he created for the Dominican sisters between 1948 and 1951. The
museum shows several models and works specially created for this project.
On the ground floor, the museum has a large selection of
drawings and engravings by Matisse.
Nus de Dos number one by Matisse
Another aspect of Matisse’s work is the sculptures he
carved. The original plasters of the series Nus
de Dos are in the museum. And the first one is also in the garden as a
bronze sculpture (A full series of the four sculptures casted in bronze is part
of the Centre Pompidou collection in Paris).
The Matisse museum also hosts the Herbin Collection (a
geometrical abstract artist born in the North of France) as well as the Tériade
Collection (he published a number of artists’ books, including Jazz by Matisse).
The museum
Musée départemental Matisse
Palais Fénelon
59360 Le Cateau-Cambrésis
Website: http://museematisse.cg59.fr/
Technorati Tags:
Matisse, art
museum, fauvism, Divisionism, Signac, Musée
départemental Matisse, Le Cateau-Cambrésis
3 comments:
I didn't know about this museum. Thanks for revealing it!
Matisse worked with Paul Signac, not Seurat in 1904 and afterwards. Please research this error before publishing.
Thank you for pointing out this mistake. I have now corrected the article. Matisse would have had a hard time painting with Seurat in 1904 (as Seurat died on 29 March 1891).
Regards,
Benoit
Post a Comment