Woman Before an Aquarium: Matisse's Painting and Hampl's Poem

Introduction: Poets, Painters, and Shared Inspiration

This paper examines Henri Matisse's painting Woman Before an Aquarium and the poem of the same title by Patricia Hampl, and considers the reasons why a poet may choose to base their work on an existing work of art.

Poets sometimes choose to write about works of art for many reasons: they may be inspired by them, repulsed by them, or even enraged by them. Equally, the work of poets can inspire artists, for much the same reasons. Many would argue that both poets and painters are artists, and that the question of why and how poets become inspired by paintings is therefore irrelevant — a painting can be as much of an inspiration for a poet as a scene from nature, a memory, or a smell. Anything that stimulates the creative impulse to write can be considered an equally valid source.

Matisse's painting Woman Before an Aquarium has always been a rather melancholy work, and the sections below explore its meaning for both Matisse and Hampl.

Matisse: Artistic Philosophy and Context

Matisse was not a political painter, despite living through some of the most deeply traumatic events in twentieth-century world history — namely, the two World Wars. Many argue that he sought to forget difficult events through his work: his paintings are all about balance, refuge, and comfort. His paintings can accordingly be seen as manifestations of an ideal place, stripped of all turmoil and striving for perfection.

In its thoughtfulness, steady development, benign lucidity, and wide range of historical sources, Matisse's work utterly refutes the notion that the great discoveries of modernism were made by violently rejecting the past. His work was grounded in tradition — and in a much less restless and ironic approach to that tradition than Picasso's. Considerable progression is visible across Matisse's career, and his celebrated use of color developed following a stay in Collioure with the painter Derain.

Woman Before an Aquarium: Symbolism and Style

Matisse's painting Woman Before an Aquarium was completed in 1921, and he returned to its themes in 1929 through a series of drawings: Face of a Young Woman and Three Goldfish in a Bowl (1929); Nude with Moroccan Mirror (1929); Nude in Interior with Venetian Lamp and Goldfish (1929); and Reclining Nude, Interior with Venetian Lamp (1929) (Neret, 1999). In the original painting, he added a touch of philosophical reflection: the viewer wonders what the woman thinks as she stares blankly at the fish before her — whether she contemplates her fate, whether she feels herself trapped, like the fish, an unwitting prisoner (Neret, 1999).

The woman is painted with great skill, serving as the pretext for yet another of Matisse's characteristic contrasts between the transparent and the opaque, the curve and the straight line, space and light, echoes and reflections (Neret, 1999). The effect of this skilful rendition of a tranquil scene is powerful, almost enough to draw the viewer into a trance-like state (Neret, 1999).

It is well known that fish in Matisse's work represent odalisques, since both possess fluid and languorous forms and, at a subconscious level, embody both the opposition and the union between the world of water and the world of land (Neret, 1999). Odalisques — concubines or female slaves in harems — are a recurring theme in Matisse's work; The Odalisque and his subsequent paintings on this theme are regarded as his contribution to Fauvism (Neret, 1999).

It has been argued that Matisse was drawn to these themes because they reflected his painterly style — slow, measured, and perfectionist (Neret, 1999). Woman Before an Aquarium can also be read as a play on shapes, perhaps in gentle mockery of the Art Deco movement, which had begun to proliferate circles and squares in its designs (Neret, 1999).

Conclusion: Art Inspiring Art

We began by considering the reasons why poets may become inspired by works of art, arguing that both poets and painters are artists who may draw inspiration from any source — nature, memories, feelings, or other works of art. Painters, too, are inspired to recreate paintings, just as poets are inspired to write by paintings.

We then saw that for one artist to recreate another's work requires a great deal of confidence and deep knowledge of that artist's practice, so that the original work can be done justice. In the case of Woman Before an Aquarium — one of Matisse's major works — the painting was handled with great care, as with all of his works, and is very finely executed.

For Hampl to engage with this work and choose to write about it required considerable confidence. The process of researching and writing the poem was clearly in-depth, as the finished poem does justice to the love, care, and thought that Matisse invested in his painting. Her style, the themes she uses, and the tone of the poem together create an atmosphere closely analogous to that created by Matisse on canvas. Hampl's poem is one of those rare examples that actually increases appreciation of the painting it addresses. A comparable achievement is Neruda's sequence of poems about Machu Picchu, which succeeds in recreating the atmosphere of that place for readers who have never been there.

In summary, Matisse's painting inspired a well-respected poet to write a poem on the same subject — a poem that is highly successful in its own right and that leads to a deeper appreciation of the painting itself.

Bibliography

Neret, G. (1999). Matisse. Taschen.

Brettell, R. R. (1999). Modern Art: 1851–1929. Oxford University Press.