I came across some drawings by Henri Matisse (1869 – 1954) by accident. Searching for watercolours by Emil Nolde, I was directed to the page of a commercial gallery which had organized an exhibition of works by Henri Matisse, too, and presented some of the drawings and prints of the exhibition.
I had seen some Matisse works earlier and remembered their reduction to single, very fluent lines. By contrast, this exhibition presented works which included tonal values. I thought these were all drawings, but in fact most of them were prints. I thought maybe the tonal works were earlier and then the artist sort of cleaned up his style to focus on line, but wanted to verify this idea by a closer look on the creation dates.
I’m quite impressed by the expressivity of the simple lines in Matisse’s works. For example, the women’s portraits seem to convey so much of their personality and current mood, despite the extreme reduction of information on the paper, compared to more “complete” or worked out drawings. I like this style a lot. It would be interesting to see whether the expression in fact represented the person that was depicted, or whether it was more a chance product resulting from interpretation through the viewer, based on viewing habits. Maybe the style of Matisse’s works was influenced by the printing medium which focuses on line, rather than on tonal values.
And indeed, from the paintings I found in these exhibitions it looks as if the earlier works included tonal values, while the later ones focused purely on line. And I’m quite impressed how much they look like drawings, where they are actually prints. Personally I like a lot the idea of prints, because they reduce the uniqueness of an artwork. It’s like introducing a very democratic idea, making something very precious available to more people.
My selection of works:
“Le repos du modèle” (The model is resting)
Lithograph on China paper 1922
“Nu sur chaise de repos sur fond moucharabieh” (Life drawing)
Lithograph on China paper 1922
“Jeune fille accoudée au paravent fleuri” (Young girl)
Lithograph on China paper 1923
“Intérieur, la lecture” (Interior, reading)
Lithograph on China paper 1925
“Danseuse” from “Dix danseuses” (Dancer)
Lithograph on Arches paper 1927
“Figure au col et manchettes de dentelle”
Etching on China paper, mounted on hand-made Bütten paper 1929
“La lettre” (The letter)
Etching on China paper, mounted on hand-made Bütten paper 1929
“Portrait de femme nu accoudee” (Life drawing)
Pencil drawing on paper 1931
“La Pompadour”
from “Ensemble de lithographies sur le thème “La Pompadour””
Lithograph on Vélin d’Arches 1951
Without title from the collection for John-Antoine Nau
“Poésies antillaises” (Poems from the Antilles)
Lithograph in brown colour on Vélin ca. 1946 / 1972
References
Presentation of an exhibition at Galerie Boisserée, 2009
http://www.boisseree.com/fr/exhibitions/2009.html
Exhibition catalog (2002, in German)
http://www.boisseree.com/images/artists/Matisse/Katalog_Matisse.pdf