Henri Matisse was a French painter born on December 31, 1869 in Le Cateau-Cambrésis. He died on November 3, 1954 in Nice. He is known as the founder of Fauvism, the style of wild beasts who emphasized strong color over realistic values.
But Matisse also created abstract paintings. His abstract works appear in three distinct periods. The first came during the 1910s, when he produced rigorous, abstracted paintings. The second came during his Nice period of the 1920s. The third came in his last decade with the cut-outs.
One of his most abstract paintings is The Piano Lesson from 1916. This large flat gray painting shows his son Pierre at the piano. But the space is so ambiguous that the teacher is actually a painting within a painting. Matisse removed everything not essential from the canvas.
“It is not therefore a completely abstract picture but a picture which has its roots in reality.”
MoMA gallery label on Matisse’s Composition, 1915
Another pivotal abstract work is Bathers by a River, painted between 1909 and 1917. Matisse considered it one of the five most pivotal works of his career. He returned to the canvas over nearly a decade. He changed the pastel palette to reflect his new interest in Cubism. He made the figures more columnar with faceless heads. He turned the blue river into a thick black vertical band. The restricted palette and severely abstracted forms feel far from his graceful earlier works.
Matisse also painted Composition in 1915. The title itself accentuates its abstractness. But the painting actually represents a view from a curtained window in his home. The red curtain, the yellow lining, the green window frame all have roots in reality. Yet the large mass of yellow signifies the vibration and pleasure he derived from the contrast of trees and sky.
His cut-outs from the 1940s and 1950s represent his most abstract works. He produced about 270 paper cutouts in his last decade. He cut forms from sheets of paper painted with colorful gouache. The cut-outs achieved both sculptural quality and early minimalist abstraction. One example is Beasts of the Sea from 1950. Two columns of brightly colored rectangles are layered with geometric shapes and organic forms. The work is set against a flat parchment-brown background.
What is Matisse’s most abstract painting?
His most abstract works are the cut-outs from his last decade, including Beasts of the Sea from 1950. The Piano Lesson from 1916 and Composition from 1915 are also highly abstract paintings that push toward abstraction while still rooted in reality.
Did Matisse ever create completely abstract paintings?
Matisse never created completely abstract paintings. Even his most abstract works have roots in reality. As MoMA notes about his painting Composition, “It is not therefore a completely abstract picture but a picture which has its roots in reality”.
What periods did Matisse create abstract paintings?
Matisse created abstract works in three periods: the rigorous abstracted paintings of the 1910s, the decorative interiors of his Nice period in the 1920s, and the radically innovative cut-outs of his last decade.
Matisse produced about 270 paper cutouts during the last decade of his life, from the mid-1940s until his death in 1954.
