Matisse exhibit

An Enjoyable visit to the Museum of Modern Art.

I didn’t know much about Matisse before this assignment, I knew of his existence and researched a little bit about him beforehand, I became a little interested in his oil paints but I must say I am not the biggest fan of the cut-out type of art but the collection at the museum was visually pleasing. Matisse paintings remind me of childhood, the cut outs triggered some past moments of my life that I haven’t thought about in a long time, I realized how dream-like based his pieces were to me. The more I explored his pieces I noticed more and more where his inspiration comes from, or at least what my brain told me this paintings were inspired by.

Matisse had a lot of different collection in the museum’s exhibition at the MOMA, most of them I realized where based in human performances like dancers, acrobats, cowboys, divers/swimmers, nightmares, dreams, music, circus performers, etc. I noticed the importance of color in all of his paintings, every collection had a selected palette depending on the mood he  was trying to set. A lot of his paintings reminded me of children paintings, as most of them seemed to be setting a happy mood, crazy colors, crazy actions,animals, and exciting figures a child could really appreciate.

Some of the cut outs had a great amount of negative and positive space but didn’t loose the feeling of movement in any of them. One of my favorite pieces was the “Blue Nude IV’’ it transmitted a harmonious feeling, and the beauty and empowerment of a woman, I thought the way the colors and space was distributed in this painting was incredibly appealing to the eye, Including the slight sketches in the background that balanced the piece very well, the positioning of the body was probably my favorite part from this piece and how almost every section of the body is not intersecting with other body parts.

One of the methods I used for observation this time was the people I was surrounded by, I believe everyone has their own perception in art, and some may see things that some others may not be able to see. I payed attention to people’s reaction to the cut outs and the comments they would give about each piece; everyone had something different to say. The group of people’s opinions I was most interest about was the kids I saw walking around the museum in pure excitement, it was lovely to see their interaction in relation to Matisse’ pieces; most of their reactions were of cheerfulness and curiousness.

I adored learning from my own observation of Matisse; sometimes not knowing a lot about an artist’s background can make you engage more with the pieces and get to know a little more about yourself, as in that case you’re the one that is interpreting the painting genuinely based on your way of thinking and not on the artist background.

After the exhibit I felt inspired and went to the MOMA surroundings to take pictures.