Matisse fertigt einen
seiner Scherenschnitte
an. Sein Darmkrebs
fesselte ihn lange ans
Bett
170 oevres de Matisse
Musée Matisse du Cateau-Cambrésis
Competition. Rivalry. Respect. Admiration. Bandit. All of these words were once used by both Pablo Picasso and Henri
Matisse in recognition of one and other. In Matisse and Picasso: The Story of their Rivalry and Friendship by Jack Flam,
their tumultuous relationship is examined and brilliantly told.
Picasso was the first modern celebrity artist, unapologetic for his crass behavior, while Matisse lived in contrast, a
reserved man shielding his life from the public view. They mocked each other in their respective works, yet revered
each other for their talents. Matisse ”left me his odalisques,” Picasso famously declared after Matisse died, and then,
in ”Women of Algiers,” Picasso returned these odalisques to their original source, Delacroix. He was expressing what
Françoise Gilot, the painter and Picasso’s lover, called a kinship based on the common ”understanding of the same
artists and the same principles.”
Both of the artists had a restless, self-confident, combative intelligence. As can be seen in the cross comparison of
their careers and from the respect and admiration adorned from their art, they were strong contemporaries whose
fame seemed to rise and fall in contrast to one and other. By the end, Picasso was strapping canvases onto the roof of
his car and driving them over to show an elderly Matisse. ”Everything considered, there is only Matisse,” Picasso said.
”Only one person has the right to criticize me,” Matisse responded.
Picasso once said that in order to grasp 20th-century art, you ought to see ”side by side everything Matisse and I were
doing.” This rivalry and friendship seemed to bring out the best in both artists. Thus, us lovers of the art world, are
fortunate that they co-existed because without the personality or presence of one or the other, who knows what sort
of influences would have driven them, and what masterpieces we would have lost out on.
Matisse und Bonnard
Pierre Bonnard (1867-1947) und der um zwei Jahre jüngere Henri Matisse (1869-1954) kannten einander vierzig Jahre
lang. Eine gegenseitige, neidlose Bewunderung prägte diese Beziehung. Bonnard und Matisse begeisterten sich für die
Arbeiten des anderen, ohne jede Rivalität. Obwohl –oder vielleicht gerade weil –die beiden Künstler so ganz
verschieden waren. Matisse: ein extrovertierter Vorwärtsstürmer, der nie auf ornamentale Elemente und Dekor
verzichten konnte und wollte und der sich mit Mitte dreißig extrem selbstbewusst malte. Bonnard hingegen war still,
schüchtern, zurückhaltend, skrupelbehaftet. Wohl ganz bewusst hielten sich beide von dem Markenzeichen des
anderen fern. Bonnard malte keine einzige erotische Odaliske, keine arabisch ausstaffierte Haremsdame also. Dafür
mied Matisse den Frauenakt bei der Toilette, der Körperpflege im Bad, à la Bonnard. -
derstandard.at/2000064080092/Bonnard-Matisse-Es-lebe-die-Malerei-Pinsel-in-Flammen
https://derstandard.at/2000064080092/Bonnard-Matisse-Es-lebe-die-Malerei-Pinsel-in-Flammen
Matisse and Picasso: A Respectful Rivalry
Matisse-models
The same seems to have been true of the models for his odalisque paintings of the 1920s. The first of
these odalisques—sprawling in “harem costumes” on improvised divans—was Antoinette Arnoud’s
successor, Henriette Darricarrère, who was working as an extra when Matisse spotted her in the film
studios in Nice. He liked her natural dignity, the graceful way her head sat on her neck and, above all,
the fact that her body caught the light like a sculpture. Aballet dancer and musician, Henriette became
part of the family in the seven years she worked for Matisse. His wife grew especially fond of her, and
he himself taught her to paint.
Matisse said it was essential to start by finding the pose that made any new model feel most
comfortable. Henriette’s specialty was discovered by accident after a carnival party attended by Matisse
and his daughter, dressed respectively as an Arab potentate and a beauty from the harem. Marguerite
Matisse, Lorette, even Antoinette Arnoud, all tried on turbans and embroidered Moroccan tops, but it
was Henriette, always modest, even prim, in her street clothes, who wore the filmy blouses and low-
slung pants without inhibition, becoming at once luxuriant, sensual and calmly authoritative.
The pictorial possibilities she opened up for Matisse were enhanced by her exceptional sensitivity and
stamina. He saw the work they produced together as an increasingly complex orchestration of colored
light and mass, culminating in his Decorative Figure on an Ornamental Ground, which was almost as
incomprehensible in 1926 as the BlueNude had been nearly 20 years earlier. The painting is a riot of
exuberant trompe l’oeil wallpaper, flowers, fruit and patterned textiles, all pinned firmly in place by the
pale upright figure of Henriette. She looked as impersonal and unyielding as a side of packaged
butcher’s meat to Matisse’s friend, the painter Jules Flandrin, who was baffled and exhilarated in equal
measure: “I can’t begin to convey the brilliantly successful contrast between the wallpaper flowers and
the woman so skillfully mishandled,” he wrote to a friend. Soon after the completion of Decorative
Figure, Henriette left to get married.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/matisse-and-his-models-70195044/
“I do odalisques in order to do nudes,” Matisse said in 1929. “But how
does one do the nude without it being artificial? And then, because I
know that they exist. I was in Morocco. I have seen them.” (Historians
say it’s highly unlikely he had access to intimate Muslim spaces.
Perhaps what Matisse was thinking of was the brothel at which he
painted during visits to Morocco in 1912 and 1913.)
By painting odalisques, McBreen writes in the catalogue, “Matisse was still
very much engaged with the legacy of 19th-century French Orientalism, a
visual tradition that had effectively reduced the rich cultures of North African
and the Middle East to a series of picturesque cultural stereotypes that, in
turn helped to justify the ideology of European superiority at the heart of
colonial conquest.”
So is it still OK to like Matisse’s harem fantasies?
https://www.wbur.org/artery/2017/04/08/matisse-in-the-studio
From 1920 to 1927 Darricarère was
Matisse's most important model. Matisse is
said to have "liked her natural dignity, the
graceful way her head sat on her neck and,
above all, the fact that her body caught the
light like a sculpture." Darricarère is known
for her odalisque poses, often with her
arms raised or folded behind her head.
‘These are remarkable poses to hold for 10
hours at a time —and then 10 hours the
next day too,’
