
"He certainly very clearly expressed something. Some said that he did not clearly express anything. Some were certain that he expressed something very clearly and some of such of them said that he would have been a greater one if he had not been so clearly expressing what he was expressing. Some said that he was not clearly expressing what he was expressing and some of such of them said that the greatness of struggling which was not clear expression made of him one being a completely great one.' - excerpt from Matisse in Selected Writings Of Gertrude Stein Random House, New York: 1946.
Here, in one short yet elliptical paragraph, Gertrude Stein explains how, after a great early success, the painter Henri Matisse decamped to the suburbs of Paris, away from the slings and arrows being hurled at him by his former friends, the Cubists and Pablo Picasso in particular.
It was Roy Lichtenstein who made me see this. Specifically, his painting Artist's Studio (1973), recently on display at the Gagosian Gallery in New York City. It is a typical example of Lichtenstein's method of reinterpreting a painting (in this case The Red Studio by Henri Matisse) but it made me look at Matisse's original from a different angle. Arguably the best known painting Matisse ever made, The Red Studio is a picture of his studio at Issey-les-Moulineaux, For those who guessing games, The Red Studio, provides the occasion for speculating about the paintings within the painting, hanging on the walls and stacked on the floor. But be warned, as Matisse cautioned the puzzled visityors to his studio: "That (red) wall simply doesn't exist."
Lichtenstein, a Pop artist of the 1960s and 1970s was a controversial figure and still is, eighteen years after his death. Trying to describe what Lichtenstein did when he painted is still debatable. Did he copy, borrow, imitate, or steal from other artists?
But what he does by focusing on the lower left part of Matisse's painting is an homage the work of a very different artist - Emile Galle (1846-1904). A master glass designer whose name is synonymous with Art Nouveau, Galle's experimental glass-making techniques were applied to exemplary shapes like the goblet and the carafe on Matisse's table. But what of that orange object with the green vines winding around it? Matisse's contemporaries would have recognized it as one of Galle's utterly unique pieces with the evocative name: La main aux algues et aux coquillages (The Hand with algae and seashells).
If Lichtenstein make me look at something familiar with fresh eyes, Matisse made me think of something we often overlook, namely that styles, periods, and movements in art are conveniences for sorting things out in ways the artists themselves may not have needed. Likely there are many admirers of Matisse who do not admire Art Nouveau. But Matisse was, himself, a decorative painter, and he may have been attracted to Galle's three-dimensional representations of (then) new discoveries in evolutionary botany. It was perfectly possible to be a Fauve (wild beast) painter and a strict bourgeois at the same time. And as for the Cubists back in Paris, their triumphalism would be overtaken when a new generation of young American artists found their way to abstraction through the paintings of Henri Matisse.
Images:
1. Henri Matisse - detail from L'Atelier Rouge (The Red Studio), 1911, Museum of Modern Art, NYC.
2. Emile Galle - La Main aux algues et aux coquillages (The Hand With Algae and Seashells), 1904, Musee d'Orsay, Paris.
Here, in one short yet elliptical paragraph, Gertrude Stein explains how, after a great early success, the painter Henri Matisse decamped to the suburbs of Paris, away from the slings and arrows being hurled at him by his former friends, the Cubists and Pablo Picasso in particular.
It was Roy Lichtenstein who made me see this. Specifically, his painting Artist's Studio (1973), recently on display at the Gagosian Gallery in New York City. It is a typical example of Lichtenstein's method of reinterpreting a painting (in this case The Red Studio by Henri Matisse) but it made me look at Matisse's original from a different angle. Arguably the best known painting Matisse ever made, The Red Studio is a picture of his studio at Issey-les-Moulineaux, For those who guessing games, The Red Studio, provides the occasion for speculating about the paintings within the painting, hanging on the walls and stacked on the floor. But be warned, as Matisse cautioned the puzzled visityors to his studio: "That (red) wall simply doesn't exist."
Lichtenstein, a Pop artist of the 1960s and 1970s was a controversial figure and still is, eighteen years after his death. Trying to describe what Lichtenstein did when he painted is still debatable. Did he copy, borrow, imitate, or steal from other artists?
But what he does by focusing on the lower left part of Matisse's painting is an homage the work of a very different artist - Emile Galle (1846-1904). A master glass designer whose name is synonymous with Art Nouveau, Galle's experimental glass-making techniques were applied to exemplary shapes like the goblet and the carafe on Matisse's table. But what of that orange object with the green vines winding around it? Matisse's contemporaries would have recognized it as one of Galle's utterly unique pieces with the evocative name: La main aux algues et aux coquillages (The Hand with algae and seashells).
If Lichtenstein make me look at something familiar with fresh eyes, Matisse made me think of something we often overlook, namely that styles, periods, and movements in art are conveniences for sorting things out in ways the artists themselves may not have needed. Likely there are many admirers of Matisse who do not admire Art Nouveau. But Matisse was, himself, a decorative painter, and he may have been attracted to Galle's three-dimensional representations of (then) new discoveries in evolutionary botany. It was perfectly possible to be a Fauve (wild beast) painter and a strict bourgeois at the same time. And as for the Cubists back in Paris, their triumphalism would be overtaken when a new generation of young American artists found their way to abstraction through the paintings of Henri Matisse.
Images:
1. Henri Matisse - detail from L'Atelier Rouge (The Red Studio), 1911, Museum of Modern Art, NYC.
2. Emile Galle - La Main aux algues et aux coquillages (The Hand With Algae and Seashells), 1904, Musee d'Orsay, Paris.