theWRIGHTartblog

Maddison Wright
Intro to Art History
11/12/2013

Henri Matisse & Pablo Picasso

Pablo Picasso, the most famous artist to be accredited for his work when alive; his work continuously struck awe in the people. Picasso was born in 1881 in the city of Malaga, Spain. He was a superstitious, sarcastic, charming man with several women in his life (and eventually those women attributed to many of his paintings). Picasso was a part of the Cubist movement and may art periods such as the Blue period, Rose period, and Neoclassical period. In his paintings contributing to the Blue period Picasso sought to draw images of poverty and depression. A painting from his Blue period I remembered seeing when I was younger, called The Old Guitarist, paints a man weakly grasping onto a guitar in time of his sadness. The man looks poor and on verge of death, with his guitar being the only object not in a shade of blue - the guitar might symbolize his only means of expressing his depressed mood. The period I personally relate Picasso with the most is his Cubist period; this period came along with paintings such as the Factory, Horta de Ebbo and Three Musicians. An example of one of his Expressionistic paintings is titled Woman with Yellow Hair. Woman with Yellow Hair was painted after a young women whom he had an affair with when the girl was only seventeen.
Another man with much talent was named Henri Matisse. Henri Matisse was an artist known for his paintings, though also worked in other artistic fields such as sculpting, book illustrations, architectural design, and decoupage. He was born in 1869 in Nord, France, to parents that would push for his career to be in law. Unfortunately at age twenty-one Matisse had severe appendicitis. Not being able to do much at the time, his mother bought him a paint set and at that moment his life would soon dramatically change into something amazing. He attended art schooling with his teacher telling him he was, “born to simplify painting” (Gustave Moreau). Matisse was slightly opposite of Picasso, being a cautious, reserved, cheerful, hardworking, dedicated family man. He loved painting outside of the political and social subjects - only wanting to paint the human body and pleasant themes. Matisse along with artist Andre Derain founded the Fauvism movement; he painted pieces such as Woman with a Hat and Les toits de Collioure. Matisse as well worked in the movements of modernism and impressionism; he continued to be involved in art until he passed away in 1954. When he was too old and could no longer stand up to paint he sat on his bed and cut out colored paper making collages of mural sized pictures.

Pablo Picasso and Henri Matisse were differing in personalities, which brought such diverse forms to their art works. Both artists conveyed such powerful emotions, though I feel Picasso had a much broader form of emotions in his pieces opposed to the Matisse’s more positive-filled themed paintings (usually with vivid colors).