Style in Art, Technique, and Paintings by Henri Matisse

If you are an art critic or simply a fan of paintings, you must have heard of Henri Emile Benoit Matisse. This French-born artist was most known for some of his artwork and mainly the ‘Henri Matisse style.' His claim to fame was his use of fluid and color and original draughtsmanship.
Along with being one of the most well-known painters of his time, he was also known for being a sculptor, printmaker, and draughtsman. Along with the legendary Pablo Picasso, Matisse is known to be another artist who had a significant contribution to several revolutionary developments in the art community.
His expertise in expressing his drawings through color showcased over a body of work that lasted over half a century, which won him the accreditation of being one of the leading figures in modern art. This article further takes a deeper look at his career and the techniques of work he used.

What Techniques did Henri Matisse Use?

Throughout the preliminary decades of the 20th-century, Henri Matisse’s modern art style helped pave the way for several notable developments in sculpture and painting. That said, this was mainly possible due to his use of novel techniques.
The intense colorism that you can witness in some of Matisse’s style paintings during 1900 and 1905 got him credited as one of the Fauves. The majority of his best works were created in this decade or so after the year 1906. This year marked the inception of the newly formed art style of Henri Matisse.

This style essentially highlighted the use of decorative patterns and flattened forms. Later in the year 1917, he relocated to French Riviera, near a suburb. Here his work gradually changed techniques, and the paintings were more relaxed and calm.
Henri Matisse’s style of work after the 1930s meant a much bolder interpretation of form. He later had some health issues, which is when he was advised not to paint. This is when he found his iconic style and created a very substantial body of art through cut-paper collages.

What is Henri Matisse's Artistic Style Called?

If you are someone who is looking for artistic inspiration, there is nothing better than to check out Henri Matisse’s art. He lived for 84 years, out of which most of his time was spent making art and other creative projects.
While his art style mainly favored Fauvism

Fauvism is considered the first avant-garde art movement of the 20th century. It got its name in 1905, and it lived for only a couple of years, then each of the artists who called themselves the Fauves went deep into own creative search. The brightest representatives of the Fauvism are Henri Matisse, André Derain and Maurice de Vlaminck. Read more

, post-impressionism

"Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going?" Gauguin asked when naming his famous painting. Well, the answers were given by the world renowned artists, who once have determined the style. Read more

, and modernism

Modernism is more than an art movement. It is a whole complex of changes and processes that took place in culture, art, literature, architecture in the second half of the 19th — the first half of the 20th century. Among the main historical premises of this revolution in art were city development, industrialization and two world wars — processes and events that affected the whole world. Read more

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Avant-garde is how modern art critics refer the general trend of new artistic directions that arose in world art at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. A very thin line separates it from the concept of “modernism”. Read more

movements, throughout his lifetime, he had a lot of styles of work, out of which the start and most notable ones are discussed here.

Early Works
When he was in his late 20s, around 1889, he had already fallen in love with painting. However, at the same time, he was preparing to be a lawyer when he got diagnosed with appendicitis. He was primarily bedridden and had a lot of free time in his hands.
This was when his mother got him painting supplies, and he soon became captivated with art. He quickly started buying works of other great artists at the time, and the inspiration shows in his early works. You can credit his early style to the greats like Van Gogh, Rodin, and Cezzane, being one of his greatest inspirations.
Matisse would carry on Cezaane’s color sensibility and compositional skills in his works for years to come. Most of his early works portray a diversionist style, with unblended color patches on the canvas, leaving the missing to the viewer’s eye. This work also heavily focused on forms and had relatively reserved color and subject matters.

Growing Influence and Access
As mentioned earlier, 1906 saw a major change when it came to Henri Matisse’s art style. This was the year he met Pablo Picasso, who would later become one of his closest friends and most significant influences. The two were also compared when it came to art by critics and enthusiasts.
However, contrary to Picasso, Matisse paid more attention to settings for figurine paintings and based his drawings on real-life subjects. Matisse later came to Academie Matisse to teach in Paris. Here he met Gertrude Stein, and this marked the growth of Matisse as an artist. He started showcasing his art more and gained a notable following and acclaim.

Fauvism

Fauvism is considered the first avant-garde art movement of the 20th century. It got its name in 1905, and it lived for only a couple of years, then each of the artists who called themselves the Fauves went deep into own creative search. The brightest representatives of the Fauvism are Henri Matisse, André Derain and Maurice de Vlaminck. Read more

Perhaps the most appreciated Henri Matisse’s artwork style; this was the highest highs in his career. These days lasted only a bit more than a decade; it consisted of three exhibitions, putting its leader on the map, Matisse is one of them. This style was mainly known for the wild use of colors with no relevance to the real world. The application of the paint was rather undefined and raw.

What is Henri Matisse Famous For?

One of Matisse’s most critically acclaimed and famous works came to fruition after Fauvism

Fauvism is considered the first avant-garde art movement of the 20th century. It got its name in 1905, and it lived for only a couple of years, then each of the artists who called themselves the Fauves went deep into own creative search. The brightest representatives of the Fauvism are Henri Matisse, André Derain and Maurice de Vlaminck. Read more

faded. He started inculcating the design language of African art and Primitivism

When it comes to the term "primitivism" in art, it's not all that simple. First of all, art historians don't always agree about its meaning. Besides that, the number of synonyms denoting the same thing makes everything even more difficult. Or they might be not synonyms at all – depending on the point of view you hold. Read more

. He starts traveling to places and is well-received all around.
He was also part of every main artistic movement taking place at the time in Paris. Some of the works he is famous for are from this era, including La Danse. However, he also had to face some difficulty selling his work, including Nu Blue being burned in protest.
Apart from that, he is also known for the collages he used to make with paper cutouts. These pieces were in the latter part of his career, and he had already gained enough acclaim by that time. Some of the best work from this time includes Le Gerbe, Large Composition with Masks, Memory of Oceania, and The Snail.

What Inspired Henri Matisse Cutouts?

Henri Matisse was always more of a painter. However, he also had quite a few other talents that further enhanced his interest in art. While one of them was sculpturing, he never really saw it through. He became interested in painting from an early age and continued it as a profession.
Work from the 1910s, along with his work in the late 1920s, gained him some critical acclaim. Only after this did he start to be considered as a mainstay in the classical culture of French painting.
However, this only marked the start of his excellent career and change in style. Although he was revered for his existing style of work, it later changed after the year 1930.
In the later years of his life, his style of work had changed drastically when compared to his earlier work. However, he still stuck to painting until a misfortunate diagnosis was made. In the year 1941, he was diagnosed with abdominal cancer and underwent surgery.
This further left him bedbound and in a chair and stopped him from being able to paint or sculpting. However, he needed a new outlet, which is when he took the help of a few of his assistants and started making cut-paper collages.
He would cut several sheets of paper in various sizes and colors, already painted with gouache

Gouache (fr. gouache — “wet”) is a type of painting to use matte water-soluble paints. These paints are also called gouache. Gouache appeared in the 11th century, when glue and whitewash were added to watercolours to achieve greater density. Its consistency creates an opaque image, it can overlap the “bad” places. In the Middle Ages, book miniatures were created with gouache paints. Renaissance artists used them for sketches. In Russia, gouache has become popular among poster artists. In easel painting, it is used to design decorative elements, together with ink or watercolours. Gouache works well not only on paper, but also on canvas, plywood, fabric. The paint is first applied in a thin layer, and then overlaid more densely. There is art and poster gouache. The latter is characterized by high saturation. Read more

by his assistants. Initially, these works were not very big; however, they grew to be room-sized works and murals once he got interested.
This resulted in him mixing two of the art forms he loved and mastered painting and sculpting and gave rise to a more distinct and complex form.

Why Did Matisse Paint Goldfish?

One of the more famous paintings by Matisse, 'The Goldfish,' has a deeper meaning to it. He always preferred disinterested contemplation and differentiated it from predatory observation.
In this painting, Matisse invites the audience to treat their eyes to the graceful movements and the vibrant colors of the fish. He wanted to portray the art of balancing serenity with purity filtering out all disturbing and troubling subject matters.
He wanted his art to excite a feeling of relaxation, calmness, and soothe, forgetting all problems and fatigue, and that is precisely what he did with this painting.