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| "The Geranium" Henri Matisse 1906 |
The dawn of the twentieth century sparked a period of
social and political instability and rapid change. With increasing industrialization, and doubt
in the newly coined “antique” social hierarchy, artists struggled to define
themselves as individuals, artists, and influential members of the quickly
modernizing society. This search for
identity prompted a generational urge to move away from classical artistic
styles and subject matter. Their new
forms erupted with the ideals of freedom and a personal expression imbued with
so-called modern ideology; revolutionizing their ideas in color theory,
technique, and subject matter. Henri
Matisse (1869-1954) was one such artist who believed in the responsibility of
his generation to not only share in the opinions, feelings, and delusions of
their modernizing world, but to find a new means of representation to convey
their reality to the public.[1] Like other Postimpressionists, Matisse
experimented with ideas of abstraction and painting as a medium of importance
in itself, rather than a means to an end, in his formation of a personal voice
and style that would speak for and to the growing masses of modernized society.
The idea of Modernism and modern art that took form
between 1905 and 1907 was not the term ‘modern life’ coined in the 1850s, but
instead the whole combination of the thinking, philosophy, and culture of
“Modernity” that was based on a concern for the medium’s technical ability, and
placing the subject matter in the second spot of importance.[2] Matisse’s painting, The Geranium, of 1906 can be thought
to represent the monumental changes occurring within the avant-garde art world at
this time. It is an example of the journey
from the former generation’s Postimpressionism practiced by Signac, Gauguin, and
Cezanne, among others, to the Fauves’ idea of representing the modern world
through emotive rich hues, to the future of total abstraction in cubism and
symbolism.[3] This work can also represent the intermediate
stage of Matisse’s own stylistic transformation from the frenzied and
unmediated style of the Fauves to the “art of balance, of purity, and serenity”
which would later define his fully developed style.[4],
[5]
Though Matisse’s image of a flowering plant and two small
sculptures placed atop an outside table is clearly distinguishable, the artist
utilizes various stylistic methods from both past impressionists and his
contemporary modernists in order to slightly dilute the crispness of form and
object identity; creating a work that can be placed in an intermediary position
along the “continuum of abstraction”.[6] Beginning in his work as the leader of the
Fauves in 1905, the importance of color and its transformative effects within an
image were instrumental in Matisse’s development of style based not on
scientific theories, but instead on “observation, on sensitivity, on felt
experiences”.[7] In this painting, it is possible to witness
his play with these ideas as he samples the colors of the surrounding natural
objects to render the table on which the central items sit. In his use of color and paint handling, one
notices the influence of the past in the quotation of Gauguin’s characteristic use
of “flat, unmodulated planes of nonmimetic color” for the execution of the
table. One can also contribute the
presence of the blank unpainted canvas used to create the “possibility of
contour” around the leaves and the two sculptural figures which pull the image
back from the edge of complete abstraction to Matisse’s predecessor, Signac,
and his concept of the important role of the entire picture surface in the
creation of the image.[8] Contemporary
influences are seen in the thick paint, use of bright and varied colors, and
rapid brushwork displayed throughout the rendering of the sky and the leaves of
the plant; all techniques were commonly used by the Fauves.[9],[10]
The
play between abstraction and representation seen in many contemporary works of
this time is further explored in the technical handling of the composition and
paint. The loose handling of the paint which creates the branching foliage of
the plant and the sky within which the vines seem to disappear contributing the
expressive arrangement of the image, moves the image towards abstraction and the
overall uncertainty of absolute form within this painting as the leaves seem to
hang, individually suspended in the air; inciting wonder in the viewer as to
whether they can still be connected to the plant at all.[11],[12] This moment of abstraction is balanced by the
clearly oversized and articulated vase and leftmost section of the plant,
allowing the viewer to maintain a concrete idea of the represented worldly
objects. The depth of the vase also
negates pure abstraction by countering the denial of spatial depth created by
the quickly rendered leaves and flatness of the table which seems to float
almost parallel to the picture plane; proposing a direct challenge to the
traditional importance of illusionism and depth within academic painting.
Perhaps the most purely abstract moments within the
canvas are the two amorphous nude colored objects which appear next to the
plant on the table. Upon closer
examination, the outlines of a human form faintly appear, and scholarly sources
have attributed their identity to two of Matisse’s own still-life sculptures (a
motif revisited in his 1911 painting, Interior
with Eggplants).[13] Aside from the dialectic of antique and
modern aspects of the color and paint handling within Matisse’s work, these
sculptures create a subject matter that can also be contributed to these dueling
forces present in the artist’s modernizing world. The inclusion of these sculptures within the
scene of natural foliage transforms the image of an abstract still life into a
miniature model of a then recognizable “populated Arcadian landscape”.[14]
Henri Matisse’s painting, The Geranium, offers an insightful look into the development of an
artist’s and a generation’s expression of the rapidly changing idea of
modernity which were ushered in with the turn of the twentieth century. Through his choices of subject matter and
object details, paint handling, and color, Matisse offered insight into the
various ideas arising at this time in the expression of the modern: ranging
from the first generations of postimpressionists such as Gauguin, to the
Fauves, and looking forward to the rapidly approaching ideas of total
abstraction.
The ideas in this article (unless otherwise noted below) are the original ideas of SadieFaye
Referenced Works
[1] Matisse,
‘Notes of a Painter’. Translation taken from J.D. Flam, Matisse on Art (London and New York: 1973), 74.
[2]
Northwestern University. Lecture by Professor Kiaer, 21 September 2010.
[3]
Hal Foster et al, Art Since 1900: Modernism, Antimodernism,
Postmodernism, Volume 1: 1900-
1944
(New York: Thames & Hudson, 2005), 74.
[4] Matisse,
‘Notes of a Painter’. Translation taken from J.D. Flam, Matisse on Art (London and New York: 1973), 73.
[5] Northwestern University. Lecture by Professor Kiaer, 5 October 2010.
[6]
Paper guideline handout.
[7] Matisse,
‘Notes of a Painter’. Translation taken from J.D. Flam, Matisse on Art (London and New York: 1973), 73.
[8] Hal
Foster et al, Art Since 1900: Modernism, Antimodernism, Postmodernism,
74.
[9] Hal
Foster et al, Art Since 1900: Modernism, Antimodernism,
Postmodernism, Volume 1: 1900-
1944
(New York: Thames & Hudson, 2005), 74.
[10] Art
Institute of Chicago. Accompanying image
description by display.
[11] Matisse,
‘Notes of a Painter’. Translation taken from J.D. Flam, Matisse on Art (London and New York: 1973), 70.
[12] Hal
Foster et al, Art Since 1900: Modernism, Antimodernism,
Postmodernism, 100.
[13] Hal
Foster et al, Art Since 1900: Modernism, Antimodernism,
Postmodernism, 104.
[14] Art
Institute of Chicago. Accompanying image
description by display.
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