My favourite artist??
- Victoria Sozzi
- Apr 1, 2025
- 2 min read
Matisse, without a doubt.
My mother introduced me to Matisse when I was in high school. His work delighted me in a way that no one else's had. At school we had slowly made our way through the medieval, renaissance, baroque, neoclassicist, romanticist and realist periods, before finally arriving at impressionism, post-impressionism and modernism – which is when I started paying attention!
Matisse's work gave me permission to enjoy art just like that. Without any pretension and without any need for the analysis that my teachers insisted upon. Just pure enjoyment.
What makes Matisse's work so uniquely Matisse is hard to pinpoint. You might say his use of colour... and you'd be right. But then what about his delightful line drawings?
Or you might say his brushstrokes, the way he applies the paint to the page.. and again you'd be right. But then what about his cut-outs? The man could move from one medium to another.. and his essence would still remain in the work.
Since my school days, I am pleased to say I have come across a great number of artists whose works have had a similar effect on me. Sometimes I have the delight of coming across a post on Instagram of a work by an artist I know that I have never seen before, which is thrilling in itself, but the biggest thrill is that without scrolling to the caption, I already know from whom it originated.
One such painting that I recently came across is The Windshield, on the Road to Villacoublay, 1917 (see below).
It's far from the first work that comes to mind when you think of Matisse. There is no abstraction of colour, there are no female forms, nor floral elements. It's actually quite conservative for Matisse. In any case, as soon as I saw it, I knew it was his. There is an undeniable sensuality to the way Matisse applies paint as well as a simplicity in his work that is obvious here (and in my opinion, in all of his work).
I'll stop there as I don't like to talk too much about a work of art for fear of ruining the pure message my eyes have already sent to me; no words necessary. All that is to say that I have yet to identify a Matisse that is not a Matisse. His originality speaks to me.
Comments