Foreword by Beatrix Ruf. Introduction by Bart Rutten, Geurt Imanse. Text by Patrice Deparpe, Maurice Rummens.
This substantial new hardcover is published to accompany an exhibition at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam. Readers are transported through the museum's Matisse works--an array of Eastern nudes, colorful fabrics, carpets, potted plants and idyllic landscapes--plus a selection of additional paintings, sculptures and works on paper by the French master.
At the heart of the exhibition is one of the most beloved works in the Stedelijk's collection: the monumental paper cut-out "The Parakeet and the Mermaid" (1952-53), presented with other Matisse cut-outs and rarely exhibited works in fabric and stained glass inspired by them. Arranged chronologically, the volume guides readers through Matisse's days in Paris, the birth of Fauvism, his representational work made in Nice, through to his work in Polynesia and Oceania. The Oasis of Matisse portrays the artist's output using contextualization with works by his contemporaries, offering a comprehensive overview of his influences. One of modern art's towering figures, Henri Matisse (1869-1954) was a painter, draftsman, sculptor and printmaker before turning to paper cut-outs in the 1940s. From the clashing hues of his Fauvist works made in the South of France in 1904-5, to the harmonies of his Nice interiors from the 1920s, to this brilliant final chapter, Matisse followed a career-long path that he described as "construction by means of color."
(Red Interior, Still Life On A Blue Table" (1947) is reproduced from Henri Matisse: The Oasis of Matisse.
"The successive flights of doves, their orbits, their curves glide into me as if in a great interior space. You cannot imagine how much, in this period of paper cutouts, this sensation of flight that comes over me helps me better to adjust my hand as it guides the path of my scissors. It is quite difficult to explain. I would say it is a sort of graphic, linear equivalent of the sensation of flight. There is also the issue of vibrating space. To give life to a brushstroke, a line, to make a form exist, that is not something achieved in conventional academies, but beyond, in nature, in the penetrating observation of the things that surround us. A tiny detail can show us a grand mechanism, an essential cog of life." White Alga on Red and Green Background (1947) and the above quotation from a conversation between Matisse and writer André Verdet are reproduced from Koenig Books' beautiful The Oasis of Matisse, one of our Top Holiday Gift Books of 2015. >> continue to blog
"Bather" (1909) is reproduced from The Oasis of Matisse, published to accompany the largest exhibition of Matisse's work ever staged in the Netherlands. Curator Beatrix Ruf writes, "In the spirit of Cézanne, [Matisse] used variations in thickness and other irregularities of line to prevent… shapes from looking unrealistically clear-cut… In the works that followed 'Bather,' Matisse applied the principle of the simplification of line and the coincidence of form and color ever more rigorously. The question he was exploring was how to leave the means to speak for themselves, so that an earthly paradise could be evoked with a minimum of details. He continued to pursue the idea of relaxed figures in pattern-like arrangements: his ideal of a modern, stylish way of painting proved to be best satisfied by the combination of an idyllic scene with a two-dimensional, decorative composition. It was a combination that would serve him well for the rest of his life." continue to blog
In 1905, Henri Matisse traveled with his wife and daughter to Collioure, France, so that he could paint in the southern light. Alongside his friend and sole visitor, the painter André Derain, he worked non-stop to develop a new language of painting. "The luminous landscapes and portraits that Matisse and Derain produced in Collioure were to be a succès de scandale at that year’s Salon d’Automne and would earn the two artists a new nickname: the 'Fauves' ('wild beasts')," Beatrix Ruf writes in Koenig Books' excellent new survey, The Oasis of Matisse. "They began their quest for a new way of painting by using color planes to create maximum intensity and hence an emotional response or 'sensation' – the term used by Matisse – unconnected with the subject of the picture. They abandoned traditional perspective and expressed light by juxtaposing areas of bright color. In Matisse’s 1905 portrait of Derain, the sensation of sunlight on the subject’s face is created by a combination of lively, non-naturalistic colors on one side and a large, brightly colored shadow on the other… Matisse saw the young Derain as a liberator from tradition and convention, and expresses this view in this portrait by the use of bright colors and flowing brushstrokes." continue to blog
FORMAT: Hbk, 8.5 x 10 in. / 288 pgs / 240 color. LIST PRICE: U.S. $65.00 LIST PRICE: CANADA $87 ISBN: 9783863357269 PUBLISHER: Koenig Books AVAILABLE: 7/28/2015 DISTRIBUTION: D.A.P. RETAILER DISC: TRADE PUBLISHING STATUS: Out of stock indefinitely AVAILABILITY: Not available TERRITORY: NA LA ASIA AU/NZ AFR ME
Published by Koenig Books. Foreword by Beatrix Ruf. Introduction by Bart Rutten, Geurt Imanse. Text by Patrice Deparpe, Maurice Rummens.
This substantial new hardcover is published to accompany an exhibition at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam. Readers are transported through the museum's Matisse works--an array of Eastern nudes, colorful fabrics, carpets, potted plants and idyllic landscapes--plus a selection of additional paintings, sculptures and works on paper by the French master.
At the heart of the exhibition is one of the most beloved works in the Stedelijk's collection: the monumental paper cut-out "The Parakeet and the Mermaid" (1952-53), presented with other Matisse cut-outs and rarely exhibited works in fabric and stained glass inspired by them. Arranged chronologically, the volume guides readers through Matisse's days in Paris, the birth of Fauvism, his representational work made in Nice, through to his work in Polynesia and Oceania.
The Oasis of Matisse portrays the artist's output using contextualization with works by his contemporaries, offering a comprehensive overview of his influences.
One of modern art's towering figures, Henri Matisse (1869-1954) was a painter, draftsman, sculptor and printmaker before turning to paper cut-outs in the 1940s. From the clashing hues of his Fauvist works made in the South of France in 1904-5, to the harmonies of his Nice interiors from the 1920s, to this brilliant final chapter, Matisse followed a career-long path that he described as "construction by means of color."
