Wouldn’t you love to have a red studio? Even if you are an accountant or a nurse (bless you!) or a parent who is home schooling?
Matisse’s L’Atelier Rouge at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, requires a double-take, and then a slow journey through the square footage, a floor plan that floats, drifts, tilts, and lifts – dizzying effects, especially when you stand close.
Is it the color – the red – that is so intoxicating, or the exhibition of the art works that Matisse has displayed for our approval, or perhaps purchase? And do you find yourself in a touring mode, turning to your left as you enter the gallery and winding yourself around? Or are you heading straight into the open space towards the grandfather clock, looking for stability?
Looking at what is displayed, we see a wine glass on the foreground table, a plate with a figure curled in fetal position, and a box of blue pencils with two pulled outside of the box hinting that this figure in contour could have just been drawn with them.
And then the long-necked vase that is feeding a vine of nasturtium leaves over a small figurative sculpture, in front of a large painting of a reclining nude. Could that be a window intersecting the left wall? Or the beginning of an idea?
Proceeding around the studio, you recognize a stash of frames, other paintings on the wall, the grandfather clock, a chest with ceramic pieces, and then you end up in the far right corner with a painting that seem to come from Matisse’s “Bather” series with figures that also resemble the agile and gestural ones from “The Dance” (1909-10).
(Mr. Barnes has already selected his.)
As you continue your tour, there are sculptural figures on pedestals, a vase and platter on the floor and a chair in the front right foreground with a sash draping another form. Backing up a little, do you see a light switch?
Matisse says that he does not know where he got the idea for the red – but with the color red, “all things come together”.
How and why is this?
Red is an emotional color. It signals heat and warmth, passion, fire, danger, strength, and dominance. It’s hot. It comes towards us, lifting and placing the artworks in our face. It gets our attention. Fast.
What else does red do? If the studio was green or blue, how would it change?
We notice that the walls and floor and furnishings are the same color. Why?
The only indication of separation is the fine, unpainted line that describes the contour of each object and also the division of wall and floor.This is called a “reserve line”. The descriptive line that traditionally might be dark or black, as in a drawing, is absent. This illusion of a tan or yellowish line is really the raw, unpainted canvas.
The early 20th century was an age of abstraction and the peak of Cubism. Matisse, like Picasso and others, has intentionally debunked the traditional and illusionistic space in those famous paintings that followed the Renaissance standards of one-point perspective. This painting by Perugino is an example.
Why has Matisse disregarded tradition? Has he joined the pack of the outspoken and radical avant grade, the unfaithful, the recalcitrant and contradictory, or is he playing with our heads, having a jolly old time with his own, toying with invention, freeing objects from their grounding, or just flat loving red – loving flat red?
And what about atmosphere?
Light or shadow?
Is there tonality or weather or air?
Is there any volume in the black vase, the objects on the chest or the red vase on the floor?
Are atmosphere, grounding, and tromp ‘l’oeil (trick of the eye) even necessary?
“The Red Studio” by Henri Matisse, 64×51, oil on canvas, 1911, has intrigued many artists and inspired many paintings.
The next blog continues to explore Matisse and his love of music and the continuing influence of his playful and magical style.