This essay examines Henri Matisse's artistic evolution through two distinct scholarly perspectives. Yve-Alain Bois analyzes Matisse's relationship with postimpressionist masters—particularly Cézanne, Gauguin, and Signac—and traces how Matisse synthesized their innovations to pioneer Fauvism. Roger Benjamin approaches Matisse through his theoretical writings and his formative relationship with painter Eugène Carrière at the Académie Carrière. Together, these critics reveal how Matisse developed as an artist by balancing intellectual understanding with emotional authenticity, ultimately transforming twentieth-century painting through his rejection of imitative techniques and discovery of color's independent expressive power.
Our impression of art is subjective, and it is human to want to know about the artists who create it. History is filled with incredible, innovative artists, and almost as fascinating as their art are their thoughts and impressions. Henri Matisse is known for his astonishing paintings, and we can see them—and the artist—more clearly with the aid of Yve-Alain Bois and Roger Benjamin. These two writers offer perspectives on Matisse from different social and analytical angles, allowing us to construct a more complete image of the artist. Yve-Alain Bois introduces Matisse by examining one of his apparent inconsistencies: Matisse may have said one thing, yet lived his life proving that idea wrong. Roger Benjamin approaches Matisse through his own writings and the relationship he had with his mentor, Eugène Carrière. Matisse's art and life were shaped by both experiences. Together, both men present a portrait of a man who grew into his art and allowed it to become him as he opened himself to its possibilities.
Yve-Alain Bois points out an apparent contradiction in Matisse's thinking. Matisse believed he was "strong enough to assimilate the example of a master without succumbing to it" (Bois 70), yet he was simultaneously "acutely aware of the potential danger that Cézanne represented for young admirers" (70). Bois draws attention to Matisse's own statement made half a century later: "When one imitates a master, the technique of the master strangles the imitator and forms around him a barrier that paralyzes him" (70). This apparent contradiction did not hinder Matisse; rather, it proves that art and the artist are constantly evolving entities that cannot be restricted to fixed definitions. Matisse was living in a time when interest in art was growing and the desire to express things in new ways was paramount.
Bois begins his exploration of Matisse's character by naming the four "evangelists" (70) of postimpressionism: Whistler, Fantin-Latour, Gauguin, and Cézanne, with Cézanne being the most present in 1905. A confident Matisse felt compelled to "reckon with all of them" (70). Bois notes that "while the personal relationships between these four father-figures of modernist painting had been marred by hostile ignorance," (70–71) we can now examine what they had in common. A "synthesis" (71) emerged between the art of Gauguin and Cézanne, but Matisse's "most important event" (71) was his engagement with Paul Signac's D'Eugène Delacroix, which is seen as a genealogy of the "'new' in art from the early nineteenth century on" (71). Signac argued that Delacroix and the Impressionists had "paved the way for the total emancipation of pure color performed by neo-Impressionism" (71). Bois suggests that Matisse's first impression of this theory was "premature" (71). Matisse eventually came to understand that "despite major differences in their art, the four major postimpressionists had all stressed that if color and line were to be celebrated, if their expressive function were to be enhanced, they had to become independent from the objects they depicted" (71). These masters also demonstrated to Matisse that the only way to assert this independence was through isolating elements and then recombining them into a "new synthetic whole" (71). As Matisse became familiar with this approach, it became increasingly difficult for him to "play the apprentice" (71), but in Bois's estimation, the timing was right for this transition.
Under Signac's guidance, Matisse became a star pupil. However, Le Bonheur de vivre incensed Signac with its colored contours and flat planes of color. Nevertheless, this work caused Matisse to emerge as the leader of the Fauves. Yve-Alain Bois points out that Lawrence Gowing suggests that Fauvism was the "best prepared of all the twentieth century revolutions" (72). Bois maintains that the "most passionate supporter of advanced French painting in the English-speaking world" (73) at this time was Roger Fry, a member of the Bloomsbury Group. Fry's passion became the Group's model for a "life devoted to the minute analysis of sensation and consciousness" (73). Virginia Woolf and Maynard Keynes were among the Group's members. In his Fauve period, Matisse abandons the divisionist brushstroke. Bois maintains that he preserves Signac's direction regarding the use of pure color and the "organization of the picture plane through contrasts of complementary pairs" (74), but he "relinquishes the most easily recognizable common denominator of Cézanne and Seurat: their search for a unitary mode of notation" (74). Bois also asserts that when Matisse finally "gets" Cézanne and stops trying to imitate him, he simultaneously bids farewell to the "tedium of pointillism" (74).
During this period, Matisse discovered an axiom that Yve-Alain Bois claims would remain with him for life: that color relations are "above all surface-quantity relations" (75). This revelation helped him understand how Cézanne's "traditional opposition between color and drawing" became negated. Matisse's greatest work during this time was Le Bonheur, in which Matisse "carefully planned his composition in the most academic fashion" (77). In Bois's opinion, the result was anything but academic. He claims: "Never had flat planes of unmodulated pure color been used on such a scale, with such violent clashes of primary hues; never had contours so thick" (77). This "bombshell" (77), as Bois calls it, caused Matisse to turn "over a page of the Western tradition of painting" (77), as he desired. To reinforce this message, he made a "cannibalistic attack at the iconographic level" (77). Ingres is a predominant source in this painting and many others, and the theme goes "hand in hand with the stylistic disunity of the canvas and the discrepancies of scale" (77). Bois notes that the painting also carries a somber mood. With this work, Matisse reveals that freedom is "not without risks, for whosoever kills the symbolic father is left without guidance and must endlessly reinvent his own art in order to keep it alive" (78). Matisse indeed accomplished this, paving the way for twentieth-century art.
Roger Benjamin approaches Matisse from another angle: his writings. Benjamin notes that these documents are among the best examples for understanding Matisse's own opinions about art. Matisse was a great painter who possessed a "clear intellectual understanding of his enterprise, and no doubt clarity helped him to accomplish it" (Benjamin 2). In his essay Notes d'un Peintre, Matisse explains many of his fundamental ideas regarding art. The article reveals numerous sources and influences, and in Benjamin's opinion, defines a discourse of confluence between opinion and theory.
From the time Matisse emerged in 1896 to his composition of Notes d'un Peintre, Benjamin identifies "three ordering principles" (Benjamin 3). Benjamin carefully studies Matisse's style and distills certain meanings while setting aside the notions and opinions of others. The first principle concerns linguistic patterns in the work itself. Benjamin is less concerned with what others say about Matisse than with who said what and why. This leads to a second principle: the effort to "reestablish the points of view of individual critics" (3). By doing so, we can better understand what they said about Matisse and why. It becomes possible to plot "not only the dynamic of Matisse's growth through the years as interpreted by a contemporary, but also the path taken by the critic relative to Matisse" (3). Artists moved through many emotions and evolving understandings when studying Matisse. Their opinions were not static; instead, they constantly evolved much like the painter himself. From this perspective, Benjamin believes that criticism "remains one of the best gauges of contemporary evaluative opinion as well as the best record of the ideological and aesthetic debates of the day" (3).
This particular approach to studying criticism adds a "diachronic dimension of considerable amplitude," revealing "that many of Matisse's theoretical ideas were developed early in his career, long before he wrote Notes d'un Peintre" (Benjamin 3–4). Benjamin still views the essay as valuable and has spent time examining Matisse's earlier writings to "characterize the immediate discursive environment in which Matisse's article appeared" (4). Importantly, Notes d'un Peintre is not simply a reaction to negative criticism; it is an "exposition by a contemporary master of the ideas behind the works which had won him a preeminent position within avant-garde circles" (4). Benjamin also encourages us to consider the audience for which Matisse was writing, as this may have affected his structure and strategy. We can find clues to this strategy in Grande Revue, where Matisse discusses his paintings.
An artist writing about art is not new; in fact, it is a way by which many artists demonstrate their arguments and reveal how they think about many things, including their own art. Naturally, given Matisse's fame, much was written about him, and from the writings of his peers, we can see more of what was happening at the height of his career from those who experienced it firsthand. The result of such study is "striking" (5), as Benjamin puts it, because it "shows that we cannot, from a similarity of professed theories, infer a similarity in styles of painting" (5). We must instead focus on what the artist produced and weigh it against his thoughts.
Matisse studied at the Académie Carrière under the tutelage of Eugène Carrière, who was "interested in the question of art education" (Bois 70). Carrière's schools experienced some difficulty; they were closed at times and suffered from mixed reviews. When Matisse met Carrière, he was working constantly—early mornings at the Academy, copying at the Louvre, attending sketching sessions, and taking night classes. Matisse fit in with other painters at the Academy such as Puy, Laprade, and Chabaud, who all wanted to "earn reputations as advanced painters in the first years of the century" (Benjamin 71). Matisse's relationship with Carrière is noteworthy. Matisse is said to have stated that his time at the Academy was tranquil. Matisse wrote that while Carrière did not speak to him directly, Carrière later told him that he "wanted to respect my idea, which interested him!" (Matisse qtd. in Benjamin 71).
Benjamin doubts that Carrière said nothing to Matisse. Puy is known to have stated that Carrière treated Matisse with "esteem and respect" (71). Benjamin asserts that the best guide to whether Carrière critiqued Matisse can be found in Azar du Marest's article, which states that while the two men differed in practice, they agreed on principle. Carrière is known to have said: "The artist must seek out his own kind of truth and avoid schools. No system have ever produced a single artist. What matters is conviction" (Benjamin 72). His rule of conduct for the artist was to "accept nothing that comes from outside of oneself or without the consent of one's own nature" (73). Benjamin suggests that this notion of individuality can be seen in Matisse's writings. Benjamin also notes that it distressed Matisse when others tried to imitate his work. In an interview, Matisse explains that his work results from "nurturing his own artistic personality, of learning to recognize, refine and develop it by measuring it against the art of others in a journey that leads 'to the total abandonment of everything which was not in yourself'" (72).
Matisse and Carrière seemed to share the notion that the "creative act is seen in terms of a transfer of energies" (73), but they did not agree on issues of line and color. Carrière understood landscape in terms of "light rather than color" (73) and grasped the "law of synthesis" (73), which connected the real to the unreal. Carrière stated that the "supreme characteristic of harmony . . . is serenity" (74). Matisse shared this sentiment, viewing art as giving "repose of the spirit" (74) and dreaming of an "art of balance, of purity and tranquility" (Matisse qtd. in Benjamin 74). Benjamin contends that three elements relate to theories about Matisse. One is the scientific study of how a painted area reacts to its neighbor. Another is the search for the "tone which dominates all others in the picture" (77), and the last is the search for the "inhibited expression" (77) within the art itself. Benjamin notes that Carrière once attributed his student's shortcomings to "the insufficiency of his emotion" (78), and it is this attitude that helped Matisse mature.
Henri Matisse's life clearly embodies the definition of artist. His goal was not only to be the best he could be but to strike out and find new ground in doing so. His relationships with people help us understand who he was, and the social perspectives presented by Bois and Benjamin help us see the man behind the art. Bois helps us understand that the artist is an organic creature, forever evolving. Benjamin allows us to see the passion Matisse felt regarding art. Both men show us different sides of the artist, but together they create a portrait of a complex man willing to let his art take him where it wanted him to go. Bois uses a statement often quoted by Matisse to illustrate the growth of his career and art, while Benjamin uses Matisse's relationship with Carrière and his time at the Academy to do the same. In the end, we know that man creates art, but it could also be said that art creates the man, as demonstrated by Matisse.
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