Fauvism - Art

Like Impressionism, Fauvism expressed their paintings by using bright colours straight from the tube and using thick and repeated brush strokes. It is common to find their work usually with the canvas on which they painted still showing. Their use of colour is what strikes out the most, but what exactly is Fauvism?

"The Open Window"

Henri Matisse (1869-1954)

• "The open Window" (1905)- is an example of how his work had changed when he went to the South of France. His surroundings were so bright and colourful that they inspired him to paint with thick brush strokes and bright coloured paint. He uses the paint to give a hint of what the object actually is, but you can still tell that the soft purple line over the horizon could be some sort of landscape. It's bright hues on the doors and walls give an almost feminine feel. There is also a very calm atmosphere which is picked up by the swaying notion of the boats; almost as if Matisse finally found some peace and quiet in his life. 

La Joie de Vivre

• "La Joie de Vivre" 1906- (the joy of life). In this painting Matisse enhanced his approach of the bright colours. But there still is a sense of unrealistic features like the skin colour and of the yellow ground. The trees are very peculiar; they are very curvy and almost mimic the female figure, giving a sense of sensuality to nature. There also seems to be a sense of music within the painting, depicted by the two figures playing on folk flutes and the group of dancers dancing in a circle towards the center of the painting. This shows how life mustn't always be taken seriously and one should take one's time to relax, rewind and enjoy nature. 

The Dance

• "The Dance" (1910)- here we find the repeated concept of dancing from La Joie De Vivre where the focus is just on five naked women dancing about in a circle. This painting has a sense of primitive simplicity where the women do not bother themselves with work or labor or any materialistic things, they hold each other's hands and dance about. If you notice, there is a part of the circle where one of the women fell down on her knees and cut off the connection of the circle, the severed connection looks like its caught in the moment where they're barely touching and yet it feels like in that moment of separation, they're asking you to join them and forget all you're worries. Although, what is most significant with this painting is the way Matisse handles his colours, instead of it being a very detailed painting with shadows and depth, he leaves the paint to have only one gradient so there's no blending whatsoever. This also helps to imprint the idea of simplicity. This idea could have originated from the Japnonisme Style, where colours are added in blocks. 

So here's my tribute to Fauvism- I painted this piece keeping in mind the techniques of fauvism, although I happened to use more paint and covered the whole paper, I played around with the colours, giving the walls a blue that isn't there. It's not at Matisse's level, but it's inspired from his work.