Date:
EI Presenter:
March 7, 2012
Helene-Carole Brown
Fauvism
In the latter part of the Nineteenth Century, Henri Emile Benoit Matisse (1869-1954) who was
practicing law, developed appendicitis. While at home recuperating from the attack, his mother
bought Henri a set of paints, some canvasses, and some brushes. Matisse had always drawn
well, and his mother thought art would be a good form of rest and relaxation for the recovering
lawyer. By the time Henri had finished his convalescence, he had decided that he no longer
wished to practice law, but instead wished to be an artist.
Matisse enrolled at the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris and began painting in very traditional
style. Not long after, he met an avant garde and somewhat controversial teacher named
Russell. Russell liked and collected the works of the Impressionists and Expressionists. This was
not the accepted view of the other instructors at the Ecole des Beaux Arts. Russell invited Henri
to visit his country house and see his collection. At first Matisse was overwhelmed by the new
art forms. Soon, however, Matisse developed great admiration for the new forms and
especially liked Cezanne and Van Gogh. Russell gave Henri a drawing by Van Gogh, which
Matisse treasured for the rest of his life.
Matisse also met Pissarro, whose work he admired, and formed a group with some other newstyle artists: Maurice de Vlaminck, Andre Derain, Raoul Dufy, Georges Rouault, and briefly,
Georges Braque. Several were influenced by African, Tahitian and South American masks, and
all were said to be “drunk with color”.
In 1905, the group rented space and set up an Autumn Exhibition in Paris. One art critic, Louis
Vauxcelles, who saw the collection of paintings said that it looked like the work of wild beasts,
“betes fauves”. The word “fauves” stuck to the group and the movement became known as
Fauvism. The paintings were laughed at and ridiculed, but the group continued to be inspired
by Van Gogh, Gauguin, and Cezanne. Trees were red or orange, grass was purple, faces were
green. The group maintained that they were not painting things as they actually existed, but
rather had liberated color to “express” the way the artists felt about the objects.
By the end of the Great War (WWI) 1918, Fauvism had split into other directions. Braque had
met Picasso and they had begun to develop “cubism”. Vlaminck and Derain had toned their
palettes down and worked more quietly. Henri Matisse had developed his own individual style,
and would rank as one of the great artists of the Twentieth Century. Nonetheless, Fauvism
played an important part in allowing artists to use color for their own expression, and we still
see Fauvist influence in the work of artists of the Twenty-First Century.