Lot 226 : HENRI MATISSE

Henri Matisse - 1869-1954

Auction Location: United States of America - 2001
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Description:

HENRI MATISSE
1869-1954
LA LECTURE (DEUX FILLETTES, BOUQUET DE PIVOINES SUR FOND NOIR)
Signed and dated 47
Oil on canvas
18 1/8 by 21 3/4 in. 46 by 55.3 cm.
Painted in 1947.
Provenance
Galerie de l'Art Moderne, Paris
Adolphe A. Juviler, New York (acquired from the above and sold: Parke-Bernet Galleries, New York, October 25, 1961, lot 28)
Jacques Gerard, New York (acquired at the above sale)
Acquavella Galleries, Inc., New York
Sir John Woolf, London
Exhibited
Tokyo, National Museum of Modern Art; Kyoto, The National Museum of Modern Art, Matisse, 1981, no. 92
Literature
"Vence, 1944-48," Verve, Paris, Autumn 1948, illustrated p. 31
Among the legendary artists of the 20th century, few were able to harness the expressive potential of color as fully and as ingeniously as Henri Matisse. Establishing his reputation as a masterful colorist during his involvement in the Fauve movement in the early 1900s, Matisse continued to explore the dynamic relationship between form and color in many of the exquisite canvases that he painted throughout his extensive career. During the last years of his life, this preoccupation seemed to overtake the artist while he completed a series of interior settings between 1946-48 in Vence in the south of France. Imbuing these canvases almost exclusively with unmitigated primary colors, the artist believed that "simple colors can act upon the inner feelings with more force, the simpler they are. A blue for example, accompanied by the brilliance of its complementaries, acts upon the feelings like a sharp blow on a gong. The same with red and yellow; and the artist must be able to sound them when he needs to" (quoted in Jacqueline and Maurice Guillaud, Matisse, Rhythm and Line, Paris and New York, 1987, p. 410). The canvases from this series, including the present work of 1947, were the last that the artist painted, as he spent the remainder of his life working primarily on decorative projects, most notably for the Rosary Chapel in Vence. As one of his final works on canvas, La Lecture demonstrates Matisse's painterly technique at its full maturity.
Regarding the intensity of Matisse's palette within the Interior series, John Elderfield has written, "The Vence interiors of 1946-48 are so flooded with intense color that it seems at times to overflow the limits of the canvas. Matisse shows us at once a mysterious interior space of colors and patterns, within which the specific identities of things are nevertheless retained, and an elemental chromatic plane, real and substantial that radiate light into the space around it. His last style, like the last style of the other great artists, amounts to a coincidence of opposites. The calmness of the interior space and the energy that is released into our own space are inseparable and interfused" (John Elderfield, Henri Matisse, A Retrospective (exhibition catalogue), The Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1992, p. 413).
The present work features the motif which pervaded many of the canvases in this series - two women seated aside a vase of flowers and an open window. As in his Le Silence habitE des maisons (see fig. 1), the artist concerned himself with the juxtaposition of contrasting forms, layering interior and exterior, still-life and figure, and straight and curved lines throughout the canvas. Instead of dissecting the pictorial space, these contrasts underscore the unity of the composition because all of the elements in the painting are set on the same plane. This sensation is enhanced by the relatively uniform application of bold colors set off against a black background.
Pierre Schneider has noted the correlation between Matisse's earlier works and these final canvases which demonstrate a more imaginative manipulation of spatial depth. With regard to the uniformity of the picture plane, he writes, "This was already the case, as we have seen, in many of his Fauve and post-Fauve canvases. But in the earlier pictures the picture plane appears as the barely emerging surface of a solid, substantial compact mass - that of reality traversed and transcended - in the later masterpieces illustrating a new Fauvism it is like a gossamer, dazzlingly bright piece of material" (Pierre Schneider, Matisse, New York, 1984, p. 652).
As one of the last paintings Matisse executed prior to his final series of paper cutouts, La Lecture appears to presage the bold arrangements of collage elements in his triumphal late oeuvre. In this work, the artist has maintained a border of exposed canvas around each figure, separating the vibrant hues from the deep black. This device effectively counters any spatial recession caused by the void of blackness by reasserting the flat surface of the canvas. Another striking work of this period which exhibits the same play of color against a black ground is IntErieur au rideau Egyptien (see fig. 2).
Along with its technical mastery, the powerful color composition of La Lecture reveals a certain vigor related to the artist's personal situation during this period of his life. Matisse's paintings of 1947, including the present work, take on a rejuvenated sense of artistic perseverance perhaps ignited by the deaths that year of his two longtime friends, Bonnard and Marquet. Working from his studio at Le R 7/16ve (see fig. 3), Matisse painted with an intensity and passion for which he had strived all of his life. The vibrancy of these canvases provided inspiration for Picasso, who frequently visited during this period with Matisse at his studio in Vence. After his lengthy recuperation from a nearly fatal operation earlier in the decade, Matisse now embraced his new lease on life and enthusiastically wrote to his friend AndrE Rouveyre in May 1947: "I've got several works in progress. I'm full of curiosity, as when one visits a new country. For I've never before advanced this far in the expression of colors. Up to now I've been merely dillydallying at the temple gates"(quoted in ibid., p. 650).