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Matisse - The Green Line

Stylistic Analysis of Madam Matisse: The Green Line Henry Matisse, one of the

most influential members of the Fauve movement, was responsible for much of

the 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 of

what he was trying to accomplish in art: the use of color to express and

convey emotionsThe composition of the work consists of a portrait of Madame

Matisse in the foreground and a background divided into several distinct areas

of color. The division in the background is apparent in the juxtaposition of

the mauve, orange and blue green, with the foreground divided primarily by the

green strip itself, which runs down the middle of Madam Matisses face and

separates the painting along a vertical axis. The background and foreground,

however, are rendered almost completely flat, so that they seem to become part

of one another, and Madame Matisse seems to become somewhat of a portrait

within 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 above

Madame Matisses left shoulder. The perspective is entirely frontal with her

. . .

The yellow

on her face seems to portray a harder, unemotional (and perhaps sickly)

personal trait when contrasted with the warmer orange and pink, which emit a

loving warmth, opposite the dividing green line. The Fauves also uses

color to create flattened out spaces and figures, such as Madame Matisse in

her portrait.

Additionally, the colors that Matisse has chosen are enriched with a personal

emotion that seems to make them even more striking in the way in which they

are arrangedThere is no real light source in the work. After he did discover his love of art he began to study in Paris

in 1892 and spent much time in the south of France, which vastly affected the

style of his workIn conclusion, the painting Madam Matisse: The Green

Stripe is an embodiment of everything that Matisse himself and the Fauve

movement 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 he

feels for his wife. He is able

to convey a love of his wife through the carefully chosen combination of

colors, as well as the different aspects of his wifes personality. This is achieved through the use of both

geometric and organic shapes, with the organic representing the figure of the

woman and the geometric establishing the background and its division of color. The line itself seems to

serve as a neutral point at which the two personalities are divided. ngled to the left and her head slightly to the rightColor, along

with the subject of Madame Matisse, is the focus and most important element of

the work. In fact, one might say that Matisse was the artist

who ensured the lasting impression of Fauvism on artistic expression and that

it would not be what it is today without his influence. By the same token, the dark, shaded area behind her and over her

left shoulder is confusing because it also suggests a light source in front of

her and to the right, yet there is no shading on her face to accompany it. All of these elements contributed to

Matisses ideas about art, in which he took and developed them to another

level and so affected the view of art for generations to comeIn a social

context, Matisse began his professional career as a lawyer and did not

discover painting and art until he bought a set of watercolors at some point

before 1892.

Lines and shapes play an important role in this work because they work

together to establish balance. Additionally, the Fauves as a whole

believed in the free and lyrical use of color and the right to falsify it

instead or mirroring nature exactly, as did Matisse.

Approximate Word count = 900
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)

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