Incorporating Fauvism in Graphic Design: Part 2

Incorporating Fauvism in Graphic Design: Part 2

Henri Matisse was one of the most prominent French painters in the twentieth century. He was a draughtsman by occupation, but soon developed his artistic talent to become also a printmaker, sculptor and a painter. By looking at his work alone, one would find it hard to guess that in reality he was an intellectual artist instead of an emotional artist. Matisse is commonly viewed together with Picasso and Marcel Duchamp, as one of the few artists who helped to define the revolutionary developments in the plastic arts in the first half of the twentieth century, accountable for important progresses in painting and sculpture. He worked hard to try out several different techniques and styles of painting, similarly to what Paul Cezanne had done. Having however worked with a particular conviction during the Fauvist movement, he became well known for his use of bright colour.

In 1905, Matisse and Derain together departed for the port of Collioure in Southern France and the Fauvist pictures that they extracted there rehabilitated outlooks towards color in art. The complete delight of expression that they attained through their freethinking tactic to color was a gunshot in the arm for the art of painting. In Matisse's paintings the outward liberty of his form seems to contradict any dexterity or performance, but when one starts to examine his effective use of visual foundations one begins to comprehend that there is an innate awareness at work. The key to his success in using such overstated colors was the understanding that he had to simplify his picture. He recognized that if he strengthened the quality of colour for expressive effect, he must diminish the amount of detail used in drawing the forms of the image. By using the same kind of simplification and naturalness to his drawing and brushwork, Matisse was amplifying the sense of pleasure that he had realized through color. 

His painting's audience was scandalized at the painting, especially in the initial years of the movement. The subject matter which was quite conventional to say the least, but that was not what left the people perturbed. The fact that the colours used were unnatural and in the shaking combinations were what left the viewers like this. Although many would settle on saying that Matisse's work exemplified the Fauvist art movement, features reminiscent of Van Gogh's and Cezanne's art were visibly present in his compositions. By doing so, Matisse helped incline other painters away from the traditional and customary academic artistic ideas.

Although he was initially labeled as one of the trouble-making Fauvists, by the 1920s he had completely broken away any connections with this movement. However, since he mastered the animated language of colour and drawing, exhibited in a frame of work traversing over fifty years he had won himself recognition as a leading figure in the history of modern art.

Nowadays this art movement is also a strong influence graphic design, where similarly artists use vivid colours in their posters, magazine covers, and adverts.

   

Bibliography:

·        Stephen Little, …isms Understanding Art, 2011, Herbert Press, London

·         Jesse Bryant Wilder, Art History for Dummies, 2007, Wiley Publishing, Indianapolis

A beginner's guide to Fauvism | Fauvism and Matisse | Khan Academy. 2015. A beginner's guide to Fauvism | Fauvism and Matisse | Khan Academy. [ONLINE] Available at:https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/art-1010/early-abstraction/fauvism-matisse/a/a-beginners-guide-to-fauvism. [Accessed 19 January 2015].