After writing a 1,000 word piece about Winslow Homer's eighteen month stay at an English fishing village, I'm writing a series of primers about other artists who made similar journeys.
Who
Henri Matisse (1869-1954), French painter.
Coastal association
The Mediterranean coast of southern France.
First coastal visit
In the 1890s, Matisse spent significant time on two different coastlines: Brittany, from 1894 to 1896, and Corsica in 1898. But it was his first visit to Collioure in 1905 that brought about a transformation in his ideas about painting. Collioure was/is a tiny fishing village in the extreme southeast of France, about 10 miles from the Spanish border.
Reasons for visiting
He joined the painter Andre Derain and spent the summer exploring Derain's ideas of using patches of pure colour, applied in almost crude brushstrokes, to convey light and mass. Matisse may also have wanted a change of scenery, because in 1904, aged 34, he had his first one-man show, at Vollard's, and it was a complete failure.
Dates visited
1905.
Effect on Work
The traditional themes of "sea" painting--boats, the fisherman's life, the atmospheric effects of air, clouds, and water--didn't interest Matisse. The light and sea of Collioure, and the Mediterranean in general when he moved to Nice in the early 1920s, presented subjects that enabled Matisse to make a radical break-out from "line"-based painting into pure colour. The great Matisse paintings of the next ten years ("such as "The Red Studio", "The Dance") were made possible by this summer by the Mediterranean in 1905.
Sea Rating
8 out of 10.
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| Henri Matisse, "Open Window, Collioure," oil on canvas, 1905 |
Henri Matisse (1869-1954), French painter.
Coastal association
The Mediterranean coast of southern France.
First coastal visit
In the 1890s, Matisse spent significant time on two different coastlines: Brittany, from 1894 to 1896, and Corsica in 1898. But it was his first visit to Collioure in 1905 that brought about a transformation in his ideas about painting. Collioure was/is a tiny fishing village in the extreme southeast of France, about 10 miles from the Spanish border.
 |
| Henri Matisse, "View of Collioure," oil on canvas, 1905 |
He joined the painter Andre Derain and spent the summer exploring Derain's ideas of using patches of pure colour, applied in almost crude brushstrokes, to convey light and mass. Matisse may also have wanted a change of scenery, because in 1904, aged 34, he had his first one-man show, at Vollard's, and it was a complete failure.
Dates visited
1905.
Effect on Work
The traditional themes of "sea" painting--boats, the fisherman's life, the atmospheric effects of air, clouds, and water--didn't interest Matisse. The light and sea of Collioure, and the Mediterranean in general when he moved to Nice in the early 1920s, presented subjects that enabled Matisse to make a radical break-out from "line"-based painting into pure colour. The great Matisse paintings of the next ten years ("such as "The Red Studio", "The Dance") were made possible by this summer by the Mediterranean in 1905.
Sea Rating
8 out of 10.