The life's work of Henri Matisse is an interesting cross section of the art from the Belle Époque through the Avant-Garde and early Post-Modern. From classical to borderline non-representational.
This early piece called "Interior with Top Hat" was completed in 1896. It's a nice mix of subject matter. The composition has a nice asymmetry, but so too is the lighting nice, from the deep black of the under-desk area to the translucent white of the porcelain vase. You can see that the artist was interested in the blocks of shape and value, as would some-day dominate his exploration of other subjects, particularly the human form.
The early works of artists are always interesting - searching for hints of which direction they were headed. The early influences of artists give them a visual vocabulary which they draw from for years to come.
These two paintings are a great example of that. On the left, is Matisse from 1898, and on the right is Cezanne from 1879. Matisse would have known this piece, and perhaps even intentionally sought to create something in that vibrant style and colour palette. (Forgive the grey bar, that's me quickly juxtaposing two pics snagged off the web).
By the 1940s and 50s, Matisse has explored the figure in distorted, colourful and rudimentary shapes, and further sketched the form within the landscape.
Matisse's 1910 'Dance" depicts figures in orange against a blue and green field. His work becomes more 'primitivist' perhaps as the years pass. By the 1950s he reaches the simplicity of his "Blue Nude" series, this one from 1952.
Like his contemporaries in Cubism and Dadaism and other multi-varied reductions of the world into contorted shapes, or simple lines, Matisse's works were revered by art fans eager to see new ideas explored in art.
Still, others - even today - react with anger and frustration at the apparent simplicity of the work and the distortions of reality. In that, the artist succeeds on another front, making the viewer look at the world around them. There's no right or wrong in these abstractions. They merely give us a lens to re-interpret reality and find beauty in the ordinary.
