Arche-tectures: Matisse and the End of (Art) History

Abstract

Le Bonheur de vivre, Matisse's only entry at the Salon des Independants of spring 1906, was his most ambitious painting to date, the product of the autumn and winter months in his Paris studio following a summer spent in Collioure. To a composition based loosely on a small, spontaneous study painted in the south, Paysage de Collioure/Etude pour Le Bonheur de vivre, Matisse added an assortment of nude and seminude figures. Though this working procedure was similar to that adopted for Luxe, calme et volupti, painted the previous year, the final product was quite different. Abandoning the divided tones of the earlier work, Matisse turned to flatter areas of color and an increased role for line and contour, eliciting Signac's famous condemnation: On a canvas of 2.50 meters he has surrounded strange silhouettes with a line as thick as your thumb. Then he has covered the whole thing with flat, smooth colors which, although pure, give you nausea ... it evokes the worst Ranson, the most detestable cloisonnisme.I