Saturday, March 22, 2014

French And Russian-French Paintings

By Darren Hartley


Henri-Emile-Benoit Matisse was primarily known as a French painter. However, he was also an artist, draughtsman, printmaker and sculptor. Beginning as still-lives and landscapes, Matisse paintings were done with reasonable proficiency in the traditional Flemish style.

Most of the early Matisse paintings employed a dark palette, thus, had the tendency to be gloomy. Henri's first contemporary art experimentations earned a rebellious reputation.

Among the Matisse paintings, it was The Dinner Table that was first considered to be a masterpiece. Completed in 1897, it was considered radical due to its impressionist aspects. Impressionism was introduced in Matisse paintings between 1897 and 1898 and caused a dramatic change in Henri's painting style.

By 1899, Matisse paintings displayed rebellious talents with not much clear direction. To organize his thoughts and sensations whenever his paintings seemed stuck, Henri turned to sculpture.

Color was a crucial element in Matisse paintings. This practice was influenced by the post-impressionist works as well as by the Japanese art. It also led to reconstruction of Henri's own philosophy on still life. Henri stretched his paintings to a forced contemplation of the color surfaces. This stretch was patterned after the fragmented planes of Paul Cezanne.

Adopted from Signac, the Matisse paintings made use of the pointillist technique from 1899 to 1905. Showing a brief movement back to naturalism, they again utilized dark palettes in 1902-03.

A Russian-French artist named Marc Zakharovich Chagall was considered the quintessential 20th century Jewish artist. Marc Chagall paintings exhibited fabulous and metaphoric images on everyday life. This was clearly manifested in Marc's early works including Birth, The Deal and A Holy Family.

Marc Chagall paintings demonstrated a perfect feeling of colors and mastery of the Fauvism methods. They exemplified mastery of new trends and tendencies, including Cubism, Futurism and Orphism, reshaped in the Marc way, as depicted in The Violinist, To My Betrothed, Golgotha and Paris Through the Window.

Filled with love and nostalgia are Marc Chagall paintings such as The Pinch of Snuff, The Cattle Dealer and I and the Village. However, during the First World War, the Marc Chagall paintings became very multifaceted in their everyday life representation despite remaining immersed in nostalgia.

During this period, the Marc Chagall paintings completed included Window at the Dacha, War, Red Jew, Feast of the Tabernacles, Birthday, Pink Lovers, The Promenade and Bella with White Collar.

Human grief and war hardships are the reflections in War. As a result of the intensification of the Jewish persecution, Marc Chagall paintings became strongly religious as can be gleamed from his works, Red Jew and Feast of the Tabernacles. Lyrical works filled with love towards a woman named Bella are the last 4 aforementioned Marc Chagall paintings.




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