Henri Matisse’s The Cut-Out Exhibition

Henri Matisse’s The Cut-Out exhibition held in MOMA was literally impressive. All of the pieces showed Henri Matisse’s incomparable originality and stimulated people’s imagination.

Among them, my favorite piece was Chinese fish (1951). Even though it was just maquette for stained-glass window, the piece really caught my eyes. When I first looked at it, it was really interesting because the cross lines on the second part reminded me of a Korean traditional garment, Jeogori. In fact, I am really interested in Korea’s past clothes and I have been studied about them a little bit. Therefore, it was quite fun to associate what I really like in a famous artist’s piece. As the piece’s title, Chinese fish, it was very oriental as compared to other western arts. In the description, it says, Matisse introduces shapes inspired by nature. I could totally see that because there were shapes that looked like clouds, flowers and a pond. Overall, my feeling for this art work is ‘friendly but also, fresh’.

As there were so many maquettes of original works in the exhibition, I found out how much he put emphasis on the process. From this exhibition, I think I learned a lot and it was a good opportunity to get a motivation as an artist.