Introduction: In Paris in 1911, the short and fanatical Fauvist movement boom has receded for five years, as the soul of Fauvism, Matisse, after several years of hard life, finally got the favor of collectors and was worth a hundred times, fame and fortune, and lived with his family in a big house on the outskirts of Paris. Between 1906 and 1917, Matisse produced many excellent works, including the Red Studio, which had been rediscovered in recent years and created in 1911.
On May 1, 2022, Matisse: The Red Studio will open at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, and the exhibition will recreate the scene of the "Red Studio" as much as possible, and the six existing paintings, three sculptures and one ceramic work that appear in the work will be reunited for the first time in more than a hundred years. These include Le Luxe II (1907–08), Corsica, The Old Mill (1898), Young Sailor II (1906), and others.
This exhibition showcases the red studio, which was presented as an exhibition for the first time after years of neglect.
Red Studio
Let's take a look at this piece first!
Henri Matisse, The Red Studio, Issy-les-Moulino, Fall 1911
Standing in front of this work, the viewer is invited into Matisse's studio in the Parisian suburb of Issy-les-Moulino. At the center of the composition is an old-fashioned floor clock with no hands, as if time had been stopped. To the left of the clock, there is a pile of paintings that are not on the wall, and the smallest one is a landscape painting. Matisse's early work was dominated by still life and landscape.
Underneath the large-scale figure painting on the right side of the clock are two sculptures of different colors. Matisse first experimented with sculpture in 1899, putting a lot of effort into clay, completing Slaves in 1903.
In addition to placing his paintings and sculptures in their place, crayons and ceramic plates are neatly arranged on the table in the foreground of the painting, reminding people of their existence as the owner of the studio.
There is not a single line in the picture that serves as space and architecture. Matisse replaced the existence of these lines with red, creating the existence of a room. All the objects seem to float in the air, interconnected, and each leading to different worlds.
The white lines that appear in the painting outline the chairs, dressers, clocks and other objects in the studio that are not related to the work of art. These lines are not painted on top of red, but on the canvas itself. Matisse left a narrow strip of white canvas between the two red areas, and the red planes on the canvas formed the ground that supported the figures.
Although in a completely flat painting style, through the arrangement of elements, this room still has a sense of depth. For example, there is a line where the floor and wall on the left intersect. The outline of the furniture is reduced, but the edges of the table still tilt inward as they move away, as do the chairs.
Back to the first impression of the work - red. The red color, which is seen as radical and warm, becomes a full and steady enthusiasm in Matisse's pen, with a restrained, rational beauty. In shades of red, the soft and even light in the house is unobstructed.
Why red?
Recalling the creation of the work, Matisse himself said he didn't have an answer either, just "discovering all these elements ... It was only when they were with red that they became my picture. So he covered the surface of the painting in a large area of This Venetian red, and when it was finished, he responded: "What did I do?" Is this my drawing? ”
Matisse's unique style of painting can be seen in this work, including bold colors, concise shapes, harmonious compositions and strong decorativeness. At the same time, the work is seen as a self-portrait of Matisse. The early works that appear in the works show the early years that Matisse walked through before becoming a great master.
Matisse's early years
Born in 1869 to a wealthy family of merchants in northern France, Matisse studied law in accordance with his father's wishes and succeeded in his studies. The change occurred at the age of 21, when Matisse was hospitalized with appendicitis, and his mother brought him brushes and paints to pass the time, triggering his passion for painting, feeling "like in paradise." Mattis decided to change the track of his life and relearn the arts. The father disapproves of his son's new occupation, but still sends him a small allowance.
In Paris at the end of the 19th century, Impressionism was weak, and the post-Impressionism represented by Cézanne, Van Gogh and Gauguin rose, advocating that the artistic image should be different from the objective object, and at the same time emphasizing the subjective feelings of the artist. Matisse studied systematically at the Collegiate des Beaux-Arts, the École Julien and the Beaux-Arts de Paris, and was greatly influenced by his teacher and symbolist painter Gustav Moro (1826-1898). Moro believed that the color of painting must rely on thinking, imagination and fantasy to obtain. After leaving the school, Matisse was influenced by Sineck's pointillistism, absorbing both Van Gogh and Gauguin.
One of the exhibited works, Matisse, The Woman in the Hat, c.1905
In 1905, at the age of 36, Matisse took three works to the Paris Salon for Fine Arts. Because of that famous exclamation, a new genre in the history of Western art, "Fauvism", came out, and Matisse became famous in the world as the soul of this trend.
During the short three years of The Fauvism epidemic, Matisse suffered constant criticism, but it did not prevent him from continuing to venture in painting. In 1908, Matisse wrote "On the Painter" in a French art journal, in which he openly expressed his artistic concepts:
"For me, the performance is not about the emotions of the faces or the intense movements of the characters, but about the whole combination and all the components in my paintings. ... In a painting, you can see that each relatively independent component has its own place, complements each other, and plays a different degree of utility. ... A work of art symbolizes the harmony of all things. ”
Matisse's persistence waited for a discerning collector, and he was worth a hundred times more. In 1909, Matisse finally bought his own house on the outskirts of Paris and moved in with joy with his wife and children. At the same time, he continued to absorb new influences. In 1910, Matisse visited a large exhibition of Islamic art in Munich, where he spent two months studying Moorish art in Spain and had new ideas for the use of intense, unmodulated colors. In 1911, "Red Studio" was born.
Matisse with red
Matisse, Red Harmony, c.1908
Studio Red didn't appear out of thin air, and Mattis also created other studio series such as Studio Pink. As can be seen from the 1908 creation of "Red Harmony", Matisse is working towards the style of "Red Studio": it is all the same large area of red, using color to fill and create space.
Interestingly, compared to Red Harmony, Red Studio pushes the simple, unified principle of color much further, but the fate of the latter is much more tortuous, including being rejected by art patrons after the creation is completed, and has been unknown for many years. The painting has been hanging in MOMA's gallery since 1949. It is only in recent years that it is considered by more and more art scholars to be one of the founding works of modern art, becoming a breakthrough milestone in centuries of studio-themed painting.
How to re-recognize the value of this work, experts and scholars have given different perspectives in recent years of research.
Pink Studio, Matisse, 1911
The tradition of studio painting dates back to the 17th century. Unlike the previous creation of the same theme, "Red Studio" not only has no spatial lines, but also no highlights and shadows. The linear perspective in traditional Western painting and the sense of atmosphere used by artists since the Renaissance are not reflected in this work in the slightest.
More importantly with the artist through spatial and work customization, this work discusses what painting meant in the early 20th century, hundreds of years after the Renaissance. Cézanne, Picasso and a number of other artists at the time tried to force people to rethink the conventions of the past and begin to create new visual experiences. And "Red Studio" marks the beginning of Matisse's exploration of his own Cubist form. Objects in this form are flattened and fronted, but never to the extent of fragmentation, movement, and tilt of the picture. In later years, the form has always fascinated him.
Matisse
Matisse behind the "Beast" label
Although Matisse was labeled a Brutalist, Matisse himself was a gentle and generous person with a peaceful heart. His students, friends, and even daughters had been persecuted by the Nazis through war, but he never put his inner fear and hatred into the picture. His wildness lies in redefining the position and role of color in painting.
Matisse wanted color to be the most important element that dominated the picture and conveyed intent, and liked to squeeze the pigment out of the paint tube and use it directly. He instinctively felt the color: "It is impossible for me to reproduce nature in a slave way... The choice of color was not based on science (as in the Neo-Impressionists), I did not preconceived the use of color, and color came to me completely instinctively. ”
Matisse wrote in the studio of Issy-les-Moulino, 1913
The amazing thing is that these warm and contrasting colors can coexist harmoniously under Matisse's pen and make people happy. This stems from Matisse's consistent pursuit of art: "The art I dream of is full of balance, purity, tranquility, and no disturbing, compelling subject matter. An art, for every spiritual laborer, as it is for the artist, is a means of appeasement, a means of spiritual consolation, ironing his heart. For him, it means seeking peace from daily toil and work. ”
As for how this miraculous change was realized, we can draw a little inspiration from the painting process revealed by Matisse himself:
"When I was painting, I had to start with my inner feelings: I saw a red wardrobe in front of me, which gave me a very vivid and vivid feeling of color, and I went as I pleased, and painted a red stroke according to my wishes... I like to change shades. Some works have been constantly revised, and their earlier red main tone will eventually be replaced by green. Therefore, my paintings seem to give people a sense of complete unrecognizability. ”
(The pictures in the article are from the MoMA official website and network of the Museum of Modern Art in New York, such as invasion and deletion)