Art Monographs
1 total work
Undoubtedly the most sensual artist and the greatest colourist of the 20th century, Henri Matisse (1869-1954) trained as a lawyer, a fact which perhaps accounts for the contrast in his characteristic wild colours and dancing forms, and the sensible cautious side, which earned him the nickname "the professor". Along with Picasso, he revolutionized the course of 20th century art, challenging its spacial premises with his flat space and perspectival ambiguity. The author gives a concise and scholarly account of Matisse's career beginning with his early training and exploring his links with impressionism and Fauvism - particularly his association with Andre Derain which helped spark off his brilliant experiments with colour. Among his many concerns, she describes his fascination with orientalism and the flat patterning of Islamic art, his relationship to the literature and music of his day and lastly his interest in the postwar regeneration of sacred art. The volume contains an extensive bibliography and biography of the artist as well as illustrating the full range of his work-painting, drawings, sculpture, ceramics, paper cut-out of murals.