Henri Matisse's Bonheur De Vivre

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Cézanne painted The Large Bathers in 1906, nearer to the end of his life. This Impressionist work shows nude figures out in the open, not in a studio. Although he is building on the classical theme of nudes, they are distorted and unfinished. It is clearly a move away from the Classical towards the Impressionism of his age. The Large Bathers can be seen as a work which laid the foundation for the abstract works which followed in the 20th Century (Harris, n.d.).
Henri Matisse’s Bonheur de Vivre (Joy of Life) was also created in 1906. It is considered to be his greatest Fauve (Wildbeast) painting, depicting a brightly colored landscape with nude figures in various poses. As is the case with other Fauve canvases, the bright colors are responsive to emotional expression and not the realities of nature (Harris, n.d.). …show more content…

Just as Cézanne constructed his scene with trees planted at the sides, Matisse did the same. His nude figures were also drawn as sensual as we see in “Ingres’s odalisques and harem fantasies” (Harris, n.d.).
Matisse’s Bonheur de Vivre was a radical new approach to art. His bright colors and sensual forms are an indication that perhaps Matisse was the first to clearly understand Cézanne’s “great formal challenge” (Harris, n.d.). It was, in fact, regarded as the most radical painting of its day, and Matisse became briefly known “as the most daring painter in Paris” (Harris,

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