Henri Matisse Analysis

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The year 1913, Henri Matisse returned to printmaking. Developing numerous prints of drypoints, woodcuts, lithographs, monotypes, and etchings. Matisse focused on the world around him, which included friends and family, everyday life in the studio, but it was the tools and techniques the artist used that had a significant impact on his work. Matisse began working on prints for Bathers in 1913, working with models in various seated and standing positions. The artist was working to simplify the human form by only capturing the essential elements and describing the figures with minimal lines. The drypoint technique creates a rigid line, and more angular because the artist uses a sharp metal tool to scratch directly into the surface of the copper …show more content…

Having his own etching press allowed him to document different states of works in progress. It was also used when the artist took breaks from long studio sessions, as a way to loosen up and continue the unification of painting and printmaking. Prints also became a way for the artist to explore new ideas for changing the composition in a painting, and etching increased his ability to make work specific, but fast. Printmaking also allowed Matisse to openly experiment with reusing discarded copper plates around his studio, which presented new compositions for the paintings and other prints. Therefore, allowing chance to play part in his painting process. Stephanie D’Alessandro stated, “Matisse’s monotypes, a hybrid form of printmaking in which he applied ink to a copper plate and then lightly scratched away with a pointed tool to make an image that is printed on paper as a single, impression. Matisse had to work quickly while the ink was wet, running the plate through the press smoothly since the image was delicate, scratched only into the surface of the ink and not the plate. If monotypes further sharpened Matisse’s efforts to simplify outlines, suppress details, and condense forms they also offered techniques and effects that he could translate directly back to his …show more content…

Picasso’s significant painting presents five life size female figures twisting in an ambiguous, tight space, and confronting its viewers in an uncomfortable way. With this new found inspiration upon viewing Picasso’s painting, Matisse is able to go deeper and more expressive into his description of the female nudes without being shallow in Bathers by a River. An intense, competitive partnership developed between Cubism and Fauvism. No matter how much he might have wanted to, Matisse could not ignore Picasso and the advances he was making in the art world. Their heated conflict deeply fueled Modern Art as each artist tried to surpass the other. As with many of Matisse’s Cubist contemporaries, the underlying drawing was of greater significance to his paintings than any brilliant color effects, even though the use of light continued to play a significant part in these 1913-17 works. Matisse found major new ways of applying paint to canvas. He layered, smeared and removed what he had painted earlier on the canvas not by scraping it away with a tool, but by applying fresh paint to cover and remake what was previously there. The raw textures in Bathers by a River energize the serious

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