Henri Matisse & Fauvism in Collioure
Henri Matisse’s Origins
By Alvin Langdon Coburn - http://digitalgallery.nypl.org/nypldigital/id?483434, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=40351169
Born in Le Cateau-Cambrésis in 1869, Henri Matisse, originally a clerk in a notary's office, discovered painting at the age of 20 in 1889 and began his formal art education in 1895 under Gustave Moreau, who encouraged students to develop their unique artistic styles. This art school environment led Matisse to meet fellow painters like Albert Marquet and Georges Rouault.
Matisse then continued his artistic development with Eugene Carriere, where he met André Derain, sharing a vision of using imagination beyond reality's constraints.
He later crossed paths with Maurice Vlaminck, known for his instinctive use of bold colours, and they collaborated in Chatou.
Matisse also spent a summer painting with Paul Signac in Saint Tropez, where he and Derain deepened their knowledge through Impressionist techniques and the influence of artists like Cézanne, Van Gogh, and Gauguin. Indeed, these experiences in the vibrant Parisian art scene of the early 1900s were crucial in shaping his artistic development.
Henri Matisse’s Arrival to Collioure
By Henri Matisse - Image URL:http://www.languedoc-france.info/artcourse/matissetoits.gif, PD-US, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=21478320
Before Matisse arrived to Collioure, he was a frustrated artist who was fed up of Paris and unsure of his artistic future and rather broke. So, in the summer of 1905, he decided to move down to the South of France and he and his family arrived to Collioure on 16 May 1905 upon the recommendation of his friend, Paul Signac.
After arriving, Matisse quickly settled into a local hotel, run by the initially cautious Mme. Rosette, who soon warmed to him. Collioure, a village between the mountains and the sea, captured Matisse's heart immediately and he explored its landscape, marked by vineyards and olive trees, and was inspired by the intimate blend of sea and earth that shaped the area's geography.
Matisse also connected with local artists, forming a significant friendship with Etienne Terrus, who introduced him to other painters from the Roussillon region. This circle expanded when Terrus and Matisse visited sculptor Aristide Maillol, leading to a lunch with painter and collector George-Daniel de Monfreid. These interactions deepened Matisse's engagement with the artistic community in Collioure and he decided to stay on for much longer than he had planned.
Fauvism
By Henri Matisse - http://www.sfmoma.org/explore/collection/artwork/213, PD-US, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=14899126
Before we discuss Collioure’s influential role in Fauvism, we first need to know what it really means.
Fauvism emerged in 1905 at the Salon d'Automne, marked by the vividly coloured canvases of Henri Matisse and his contemporaries and signalled a major shift in art.
The movement was named "Fauvism" by art critic Louis Vauxcelles, who actually used the term to criticise its bold use of colours.
Matisse's famous "La femme au chapeau" (The Woman in the Hat) became particularly controversial, placing him as a leader of this new movement alongside André Derain, Maurice de Vlaminck and others.
The Fauvists emphasized pure, bright colours and simplified forms to convey emotional depth and moved away from realistic representations whilst experimenting with line, perspective and space to create a more poetic visual language.
Fauvist brushstrokes were often rapid and visible and used simple subjects like landscapes and everyday scenes to express the vibrancy of life.
As an artistic “movement”, it was more of a flash in the pan and, as early as 1908, Fauvism had largely moved on artists experimented with other media and styles, but it laid the foundational principle that colour could really be the primary means of expression in painting.
Matisse, Derain & Fauvism in Collioure
By André Derain - Author, PD-US, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1010266
By Henri Matisse - www.mcs.csuhayward.edu, 1 January 2008, PD-US, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=14994399
In Collioure, inspired by the local artists and landscape, Henri Matisse moved away from pointillism, embracing pure emotion in his art.
He invited André Derain to join him, who arrived in early July 1905, and was immediately captivated by the striking light of the region.
Together, Derain and Matisse explored a new artistic vision and mainly worked outdoors to capture the essence of the village through vibrant and expressive colours.
This genuine collaboration marked a period of intense experimentation with colour, which Derain described as transforming colours into "sticks of dynamite" that "exploded into light."
The duo worked from a studio with a sea view, producing significant works of Fauvism, most notably Matisse's "La fenêtre ouverte" (The Open Window), where colours inside and outside merge in a depiction of light reflecting off the sea through a window, and Derain's "Bateaux à Collioure" (Boats in Collioure), which captured the shimmering water and reflections with fragmented brushstrokes.
Derain’s painting "Phare de Collioure" (The Lighthouse at Collioure) celebrated the sun's effect, which seemed to alter space, time, and matter.
Both artists also captured the essence of Collioure, with Derain focusing on local scenes like fishermen at work, characterized by stark blue and black tones accented with red, and women mending nets depicted as dark, rounded forms.
Their paintings, infused with the spirit of Fauvism, featured explosive reds, greens, oranges, and yellows, transforming mundane scenes into vibrant, emotional canvases.
Their work in Collioure led to a breakthrough in the use of colour and form, with painting becoming an arena where colour was the primary subject, lines were simplified, and the distinction between the interior and exterior blurred.
The End of Fauvism in Collioure
After their productive summer in Collioure, André Derain and Henri Matisse left with a significant collection of their artworks.
Derain departed on 24 August with thirty paintings, twenty drawings and fifty sketches, while Matisse returned to Paris on 2 September with fifteen paintings, forty watercolour, and a hundred drawings.
When they together exhibited some of these works at the Salon d'Automne, critics disparagingly labelled them as like a "cage of wild beasts” and inadvertently coining the term "Fauvism" to describe their bold use of colour in a disparaging way.
Despite the initial ridicule, their work soon caught the attention of collectors and dealers, most notably, the Stein family from America who acquired Matisse’s “La raie verte” (The Green Line) and “Le Bonheur de vivre” (The Joy of Living), and collector Gustave Fayet who purchased seascapes.
Andre Derain never returned, but Matisse found the environment of Collioure so stimulating that he returned several times, each visit sparking new artistic explorations. But, their time together in Collioure marked a pivotal moment in their careers and significantly shaped the development of Fauvism through their innovative focus on colour and form in Collioure.
