African Art at the heart of Matisse’s work
The artist Henri Matisse requires no introduction. Painter, sculptor, leading figure of the fauvism movement, his name is often accompanied by superlatives to describe both his work and his legacy.
The exhibition Matisse in the studio is a sneak peak into his studio life. It examines how his body of work came to being and what influenced his practices. Incidentally, it also demonstrates how much other cultures, especially African Art, came to shape his work.
The exhibition starts with ordinary objects such as a wedding gift chocolate pot, or a beloved chair that took center stage in several of Matisse’s paintings. The following rooms feature large collections of African art, masks and fabrics displayed alongside some of Matisse’s Art works that reference them. That juxtaposition of the art works makes it apparent how much Matisse continuously leaned on African Art, dissected it and incorporated it into his practice as his own.
Let’s revisit the most notable ones from the exhibition. :
- Small Light Woodcut, The large woodcut, 1906
The year 1906 was pivotal in Matisse’s artistic life. That year, he met his lifelong rival and friend Picasso, travelled to Alger in search for new influences to push the boundaries of his art and bought his first African mask, (not necessarily in that chronological order). That same year, familiar iconography of African Art, appeared in his Small Light Woodcut and large woodcut art works.
- Study of two women sculpture
By 1908 Matisse had acquired a large collection of masks and sculptures that informed his own practice. The sculpture study of two women, dates back to the same year. Of all the works on display, this is by far the most disturbing. It is a 3 dimensional rendering of a picture of two naked Tuareg Girls, published in L’humanite Feminine. It was a self-proclaimed ethnographic journal that in effect played on and nurtured the stereotype of the erotic foreign women.
- Marguerite
Much has been said about the relationship between Matisse and Picasso. In essence, they were rivals and friends and as such, exchanged paintings. Picasso kept Marguerite. A portrait Matisse made of his own daughter, which depicted her with very angular traits similar to that of the African masks he owned.
- Odalique
“Islamic Art” exerted a major influence on Henri Matisse. He visited the landmark Islamic art exhibition in Munich in 1910 and later on, travelled to Morocco in 1912 and 1913. He kept in his studio, an example of Haiti, a beautifully patterned North African textile that is on display alongside “reclining odalisque”, reminiscent of the exoticism of the harem.
- Red Interior still life and the Chapel of the Rosary in Vence
The Kuba cloth is a traditional textile made of woven raffia leaves and handwoven by the Kuba people (Current Democratic Republic of Congo). They were imported to Europe from as early as the 19th Century. They stand out from any other fabric with their bold geometrical forms and their usual dual tones (brown and black). Of these Fabrics, Matisse said “ I never tire of looking at them … and waiting for something to come to me from the mystery of their instinctive geometry” (Matisse, Nice, former collection of Henri Matisse).
The exhibition closes with the various Kuba Cloths that adorned Matisse’s studio and were a major influence when he painted one of his last paintings Red Interior still life on a blue table in 1942. Their influence was also visible on the red Maquette for the chasule to be used in the Chapel of the Rosary in Vence that Matisse designed.
Would you pass an opportunity to do a tour of Matisse’s studio? No. And this is as close as we could get to a studio tour. His genius has been – and rightly so – celebrated for decades with little mention of the cultures he drew his inspiration from. So the exhibition is a breath of fresh air and a much-needed departure from the myth of the divinely inspired artist. It restores him as an artist, and a human of his time. One, who for the better part pushed the boundaries of Art by borrowing from other cultures and in doing so, redefined Art as we know it today.
The exhibition Matisse in the studio continues at the Royal Academy of Arts in London until November 12th .