The life and works of the great French painter Henri Matisse.

1. Henri Matisse
"If my story were ever to be written truthfully from start to
finish, it would amaze everyone."

2. Outline
Why Henri Matisse?
The biographic facts of Henri Matisse.
What did he devote his life to?
How did his career develop?
In which way is he connected with the region of
Provence?

3. Why Henri Matisse?
Henri-Émile-Benoît Matisse was a french artist, who
represented, along with the other famous artists, the
French culture.
He was a printmaker, sculptor, but is known mainly as
a painter. His works are original and are
referred to the Modern Art which
is interesting to explore.

4. Facts of biography
Henri Matisse was born in 1869 in a small French
town.
His parents were hard-workers and well-off.
Having finished lycée, he went to Paris to study law. He
also worked at a law office.

5. The deal of his life
Matisse’s discovery of his true profession came about in
an unusual manner. Following an attack of
appendicitis, he began to paint in 1889. He said later,
“From the moment I held the box of colors in my
hands, I knew this was my life.”

6. Matisse’s mother was the first to advise her son not to
adhere to the “rules” of art, but rather listen to his own
emotions.
Matisse had discovered "a kind of paradise" as he later
described it. But his drastic change of profession deeply
disappointed his father.

7. How did his career develop?
Two years later in 1891 Matisse returned to Paris to
study art at the Académie Julian, but left one year later.
He initially failed his drawing exam for admission to
the École des Beaux-Arts, but persisted and was finally
accepted.

8. Matisse began painting still-lives and landscapes in the traditional
Flemish style, at which he achieved reasonable proficiency. Most
of his early works employ a dark palette and tend to be gloomy.
Although he executed numerous copies after the old masters he
also studied contemporary art.

9. In 1896, Matisse was elected as an associate member of
the Société Nationale, which meant that each year he
could show paintings at the Salon de la Société without
having to submit them for review.

10. Matisse's career can be divided into several periods that
changed stylistically, but his underlying aim always
remained the same: to discover
"the essential character of things”
and to produce an art
"of balance, purity, and serenity,”
as he himself put it.
In his painting, he disregarded perspective, abolished
shadows, repudiating the academic distinction between
line and color.
Matisse’s first solo exhibition took place in 1904,
without much success.

11. Matisse combined pointillist color and Cezanne’s way
of structuring pictorial space stroke by stroke to
develop Fauvism – a way less of seeing the world than
of feeling it with one’s eyes.
When Fauvist works were first exhibited Salon
d'Automne in Paris they created a scandal.

12. The painting that was singled out for attacks was
Matisse’s “Woman with a hat”, a portrait of his wife,
Madame Matisse.
From 1906 to 1917 he lived in Paris. Many of his finest
works were written during this period.

13. Moving to Nice
Matisse moved to Nice in 1917 to distance himself
from wartime activity, where bright, warm colors
showed him "simpler venues which won’t stifle the
spirit."
His spirit became loyal to the
"silver clarity of light" in Nice,
and he returned to Paris only
for a few months each summer.

14. The years 1917–30 are known as his early Nice period,
when his principal subject remained the female figure
or an odalisque. These paintings are infused with
southern light, bright colors, and a profusion of
decorative patterns.

15. In 1941 Matisse was diagnosed with cancer, and then
he lived through a risky operation.
“A second life”, was what he called the last fourteen
years of his life. Following an operation he found
renewed and unexpected energies. This new lease of
life led to an extraordinary burst of expression, the
culmination of half a century of work.

16. In 1951, Matisse completed a monumental four-year
project of designing the interior,
the glass windows and the decorations
of the Chapelle du Rosaire in Vence.
Matisse’s prestige was such that
he could largely financed the project
himself and after it was
completed, the chapel opened in
1951 in a ceremony led by the
Archbishop of Nice.
Matisse died of a heart attack at the
age of eighty-four, on November 3,
1954 in Nice.

17. Meaning to the region
The artist lived in Nice during 37 years of his life.
There, he created a great number of masterpieces. He
also invested money into cultural development of the
region.
Nowadays, there’s a Museum of talented Henri
Matisse, where there’re not only his paintings, but also
his personal things.