Henri Matisse: Rooms with a View - Couverture souple

Blum, Shirley Neilsen

Couverture souple

ISBN 10 : 0500238782 ISBN 13 : 9780500238783

Editeur : Thames & Hudson Ltd, 2010

Synopsis

This book brings together for the first time the rich collection of Matisses paintings of interiors and windows. The distinguished art historian Shirley Blum analyses more than fifty works, from the early painting "Studio Under the Eaves" (1901-02) to the great stained glass window at the "Chapel of the Rosary in Vence" (1947-51). With perceptive text and scores of luscious illustrations, "Rooms with a View" reveals the key role of the window in Matisses oeuvre.

A propos du livre

Présentation de l'éditeur :

The colorful, painterly, uplifting, and often joyous works of Henri Matisse are critical in the history of modern art. Throughout his many years as a painter, the celebrated artist kept returning to one particular subject—the windowed interior. Henri Matisse: Rooms with a View explores in depth, for the first time, the full significance of the window in Matisse’s thinking about interior and exterior space.

Matisse studied and rearranged his rooms constantly; when he lived in hotels and small apartments his living quarters usually doubled as his studio. In a continuous engagement with these spaces he produced not only singular masterpieces but also developed a theme as rich as the traditional landscape or portrait. In each new phase of his art and with every change of residence, Matisse reinvented the theme of the window.

Distinguished art historian Shirley Neilsen Blum analyzes more than fifty paintings, starting with the early Studio Under the Eves (1903), a traditional darkened room with a small brilliant window, through Harmony in Red (1908), with its startling use of color, pattern, and line, to the more abstract work created during World War I such as The Piano Lesson (1916). After the war Matisse moved to Nice. Tall French windows that open upon a balcony and overlook the Mediterranean define many of the paintings from these years. By the late 1940s the window is so bound to the structure of the flattened space that it is barely differentiated from a painting or piece of tapestry hanging on the wall. The luxuriously illustrated volume culminates in one of Matisse’s greatest and most original works—the Chapel of the Rosary (1947–51) at Vence—where, instead of imitating light and color in paint, he manipulated actual light through the colored glass of the windows.

This insightful volume reveals not only the key role of the windowed interior in Matisse’s oeuvre but also presents an overview of the artist’s remarkable and varied career, and shows how his work paved the way for some of the most radical abstract painting of the twentieth century.

Biographie de l'auteur :

Shirley Neilsen Blum has had a long and distinguished career as an art historian. She taught for many years, including periods at the University of Chicago, the University of California at Riverside and the State University of New York at Purchase. Among her numerous published works are the notable Early Netherlandish Triptychs and the exhibition catalog The Window in Twentieth-Century Art.

À propos de cette édition

• Éditeur: Thames & Hudson Ltd
• Date d'édition: 2010
• ISBN 10: 0500238782
• ISBN 13: 9780500238783
• Reliure: Broché
• Nombre de pages: 192