Henri Emile Banoit Matisse was born in a small weaver’s cottage in a textile town on December 31st, 1869. In 1887, Matisse went to Paris to study law and he became a court administrator after earning his qualification. After two years, Henri Matisse went through an attack of appendicitis and started painting with the art supplies that were bought to him by his mother. That was when he realized his true passion. Matisse found painting not only his “paradise” but also loved it more than anything else and he, therefore, warned his fiancée about the same before he married her. Most of Matisse’s early works were sad and dark and comprised of still-lives and landscapes. Henri switched his method completely after he met the painter, John Peter Russell, who introduced him to Impressionisms.(1)
Henri Matisse’s ‘Woman Reading’ painting was made in 1894. It is an oil painting of 24 1/4 x18 7/8 inches displayed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Paris.(2) “Woman Reading” consists of a lady sitting on a chair with her back facing the viewer. She is wearing a long, black piece of clothing and reading a book. The way the color is used in the painting gives it a very rustic look. It somehow reminds me of the painting “Arrangement of Grey and Black No. 1,” popularly known as “Whistler’s Mother” by James McNeill Whistler. This is because firstly, the dress that the women in both the paintings are wearing is a long black dress, which is similar. Secondly, both the paintings have some kind of uniqueness and calmness to it. It makes you want to forget the world since that’s what both the women are doing. In the painting, “Woman Reading,” she is doing so by reading a book and in “Whistler’s Mother,” the woman is made so still that she seems to be in some kind of deep thought.
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Another piece of Henri Matisse that I really like is from 1934 called “Blue Eyes” which is exhibited at the Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore, USA.(5) The reason why I really like this painting is because I kind of see myself (as that girl) in it. The girl in the painting, Blue Eyes, looks really sad. The artist, Henri Matisse, has shown this emotion very clearly by the way he created the girl’s lips and eyes. They have a certain kind of despair to it. What makes the gloominess in the picture more obvious is the girl’s body posture, as it looks very relaxed and carefree.
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(1) Henri Matisse, “The Personal Life of Henri Matisse” (http://www.henri-matisse.net/biography.html)
(2) Henri Matisse, “Woman Reading” (http://uploads2.wikiart.org/images/henri-matisse/woman-reading-1894.jpg)
(3) Henri Matisse, “Woman Reading,” ‘Paintings’ (http://www.henri-matisse.net/paintings/aa.html)
(4) James McNeill Whistler, “Arrangement of Grey and Black No. 1” (http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a6/Whistlers_Mother,_James_Abbott_McNeill_Whistler_cropped.jpg)
(5) Henri Matisse, “Blue Eyes” (http://uploads7.wikiart.org/images/henri-matisse/blue-eyes-1934.jpg)
(6) Henri Matisse, “Blue Eyes,” ‘Paintings’ (http://www.henri-matisse.net/paintings/cy.html)