Henri Matisse Cut outs

Henri Matisse - Henri Matisse was born in 1869 in France, and lived until 1954. Matisse was training to be a lawyer, when he fell sick and had to spend almost a year in bed. His mother gave him a paintbox so that he would not get bored. This is when he fell in love with painting and decided to become an artist. Matisse was a master colorist - he is best known for his vividly colorful paintings, drawings, prints, and collages. He lived at the same time as another famous artist, Pablo Picasso, and was friends with him . Matisse loved to paint people, and objects. Later on in his life, he started to make his pictures with fewer lines and colors, and simplify them as much as possible.

Woman with a Hat - 1905 Matisse was the leader of an Art movement called Fauvism. The term Fauvism comes from ‘les Fauves’, which means ‘wild beasts’ in French. This refers to a style of art which uses bold and bright colors, and an emotional and expressive style of painting. This painting was considered shocking at the time it was painted, because of it’s bold use of color and wild and expressive brushstrokes.

The Dessert - Harmony in Red - 1908 Matisse put decorative patterns in many of his paintings. He traveled a lot, and was influenced by patterns and prints from different cultures including Japan, Spain, and North Africa. Look at all the bright colors in this painting.

larger and larger... Drawing with Scissors In the late 1940s, When Henri Matisse was in his 70s and in a wheelchair, he began to find it increasingly difficult to paint and draw like he used to. He started painting large sheets of paper with vivid colors, cut the paper into shapes inspired by nature, and arrange them carefully onto a surface. At first, he started small, but then his paper cut outs got larger and larger...

Often, he would cover walls with his cutouts

Matisse would not use a pencil to draw with before cutting shapes, he just cut his shapes out. He called this technique ‘drawing with scissors’. He put colors and shapes together carefully, and thought about the spaces between shapes. The spaces between shapes are called ‘negative space’.

Matisse loved making patterns, and many of his shapes were inspired by nature. Can you guess what some of these cutouts were inspired by?

You can see some of Henri Matisse’s cut outs right here in DC, at the National Gallery of Art!