Matisse - The Green Line
Stylistic Analysis of Madam Matisse: The Green Line Henry Matisse, one of themost influential members of the Fauve movement, was responsible for much ofthe attention brought to it and its respective members. One of his works,Madame Matisse: The Green Line, more or less serves as an excellent example ofwhat he was trying to accomplish in art: the use of color to express andconvey emotionsThe composition of the work consists of a portrait of MadameMatisse in the foreground and a background divided into several distinct areasof color. The division in the background is apparent in the juxtaposition ofthe mauve, orange and blue green, with the foreground divided primarily by thegreen strip itself, which runs down the middle of Madam Matisses face andseparates the painting along a vertical axis. The background and foreground,however, are rendered almost completely flat, so that they seem to become partof one another, and Madame Matisse seems to become somewhat of a portraitwithin a portraitThe space in the portrait is more or less two dimensional,with only a slight hint of depth illustrated by a dark area of shading aboveMadame Matisses left shoulder. The perspective is entirely frontal with her
The yellowon her face seems to portray a harder, unemotional (and perhaps sickly)personal trait when contrasted with the warmer orange and pink, which emit aloving warmth, opposite the dividing green line. The Fauves also usescolor to create flattened out spaces and figures, such as Madame Matisse inher portrait. Additionally, the colors that Matisse has chosen are enriched with a personalemotion that seems to make them even more striking in the way in which theyare arrangedThere is no real light source in the work. After he did discover his love of art he began to study in Parisin 1892 and spent much time in the south of France, which vastly affected thestyle of his workIn conclusion, the painting Madam Matisse: The GreenStripe is an embodiment of everything that Matisse himself and the Fauvemovement stood for: the lyrical use of color to create an art of balance,purity, and serenity. Matisse has used color here to illustrate a sense of the emotions hefeels for his wife. He is ableto convey a love of his wife through the carefully chosen combination ofcolors, as well as the different aspects of his wifes personality. This is achieved through the use of bothgeometric and organic shapes, with the organic representing the figure of thewoman and the geometric establishing the background and its division of color. The line itself seems toserve as a neutral point at which the two personalities are divided. ngled to the left and her head slightly to the rightColor, alongwith the subject of Madame Matisse, is the focus and most important element ofthe work. In fact, one might say that Matisse was the artistwho ensured the lasting impression of Fauvism on artistic expression and thatit would not be what it is today without his influence. By the same token, the dark, shaded area behind her and over herleft shoulder is confusing because it also suggests a light source in front ofher and to the right, yet there is no shading on her face to accompany it. All of these elements contributed toMatisses ideas about art, in which he took and developed them to anotherlevel and so affected the view of art for generations to comeIn a socialcontext, Matisse began his professional career as a lawyer and did notdiscover painting and art until he bought a set of watercolors at some pointbefore 1892. Lines and shapes play an important role in this work because they worktogether to establish balance. Additionally, the Fauves as a wholebelieved in the free and lyrical use of color and the right to falsify itinstead or mirroring nature exactly, as did Matisse.
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