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Posts Tagged ‘Henri Matisse’

The Pacifying Light

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , on May 31, 2025| Leave a Comment »

The Pacifying Light

What I dream of is an art of balance, of purity and serenity, devoid of troubling or disturbing subject matter, an art which could be for every mental worker, for the businessman was well as the man of letters, for example, a soothing, calming influence on the mind, something like a good armchair which provides relaxation from physical fatigue.

–Henri Matisse, Notes of a Painter (1908)

I love this passage from Henri Matisse expressing his aspirations for how his work might affect the viewer. I should probably be sharing some of his work but I am instead sharing a new painting from my upcoming show at the Principle Gallery. I can rationalize this by saying that I very much share Matisse’s desires for my own work and have often found it to be a soothing, comforting influence, as he put it, on my mind.

A good armchair in which to relax.

This new painting, The Pacifying Light, fits that description very well, at least to my eyes and mind. I find something very soothing in the color and rhythm of this piece, something that instantly puts me at ease without even pondering any meaning in it. It makes it very inviting, giving the viewer an easy entrance into it.

This accessibility is often half the battle in creating a piece of art that engages or moves people in any way. Feeling comfortable in the created space of an artwork allows the viewer to relax and really explore what they are seeing in the work and what that meaning that holds for themselves.

There is that sort of easiness in this piece. It feels quiet and invitingly peaceful while still maintaining space for deeper reflection. I guess that would serve as my corollary to Matisse’s stated aspirations– to put the viewer at ease while still giving them something to think about.

I think The Pacifying Light fulfills that goal.

The Pacifying Light is 20″ by 10″ on canvas.

 is included in my exhibit of new work, Entanglement, that opens less than two weeks from today, on Friday, June 13 at the Principle Gallery with an Opening Reception from 6-8:30 PM.

Two weeks from today, I will also be giving a Painting Demonstration at the gallery on Saturday, June 14, from 11 AM until 1 PM. Hope you can make it either or both events.

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Invocation in Blue

Posted in Event, Favorite Things, Music, Painting, Quote, Recent Paintings, tagged , , , , , , , , on May 27, 2021| 1 Comment »

GC Myers- Invocation in Blue sm

A certain blue enters your soul. A certain red has an effect on your blood-pressure.

– Henri Matisse

Matisse certainly had it right.

For me, blue is the color of the soul and spirit and red the corporeal, the blood and body. Blue is the ethereal. Red is the carnal. I think that is why both colors play such a large part in my work. Actually, they play large parts in the work of most artists. They are two of the three primary colors for a good reason.

But in my work they often symbolize those two parts in us as individual humans– the body and the spirit, the carnal and the ethereal. Having the two come to terms within the picture and within myself is often part of my aim, something I usually don’t recognize until I am examining the painting after completion.

I think this new painting, a 16″ by 20″ canvas that is part of my new show at the Principle Gallery which opens next Friday, June 4. This piece is titled Invocation in Blue. I see it as dealing with that space between the spirit and the physical in each of us, about how we aspire to our higher aspects but are bound by our earthly desires.

Head in the stars, feet in the mud, figuratively speaking.

And that is sort of what I see here. The Red Tree aspires to the ethereal calm found in the endless blue of the night sky and the peaceful presence of the moon. But it is still rooted in the earth, still comforted and sustained by its earthly needs and desires. The patchwork of reds and purples seem almost like a quilt or comforter that mainly warms and protects but also restrains.

But even so, both of the worlds attached to each color have an appeal of their own. And in this piece, they dwell side by side, as they often do within some of us. It is a painting that has an acceptance of its place in the universe, that recognizes that we can and do exist in both the ethereal and the corporeal worlds. It is a painting of the peaceful balance that can exist between the two.

But, as always, that’s just my opinion. You might see it as something altogether different. And to that, I say, Good for you. That’s just as it should be.

Okay, here’s some music to accompany the painting. It’s also a great song to sip coffee by. It’s the great jazz piece Blue in Green. It is most often associated with Miles Davis. He is credited with writing it and his version is iconic. Brilliant. But I also like the version below from pianist Bill Evans who played on the Davis recording and was later revealed to be the true composer of the tune though he never received credit on the label or in royalties. It’s just a beautiful piece and I like to think it sums up the balance between the two worlds I discussed above.

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Matisse/Not Like Everybody Else

Posted in Advice, Favorite Things, Influences, Painting, Quote, tagged , on June 9, 2020| 3 Comments »

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It has bothered me all my life that I do not paint like everybody else.

–Henri Matisse

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Well, Mr. Matisse certainly did not paint like everybody else and I, for one, am glad of it.

But I believe I know what he is saying. As an artist, you’re always torn between poles of confidence.

When it is at its highest point, you believe so strongly in what you are doing that it doesn’t matter what everybody else’s work is like.

But at the low points, you lose confidence in the credibility of your own voice and vision. At these low points it seems like it would be easier to have the comfort of being able to judge your own work against others who do the same type of work so that you could gauge whether your creations were worthy of notice.

I certainly have swung wildly between these two poles and have at points wished that I painted more like other artists, as though I would somehow benefit from their credibility. I know that this sort of thinking is misplaced and the result of low self-esteem in that moment, but it happens. And on a more regular basis than one might think.

But the work itself is usually the voice of reason, the thing that brings me around once more. Just getting lost in the creation of a piece and sitting in front of it in the aftermath, still fully immersed in the life force it then exudes, washes away that need to be like everybody else.

But even in that moment, I know that nagging feeling, that desire to be like everybody else, will still be there waiting for me when I inevitably swing back to that other pole.

So, Mr. Matisse, thank you for not being like everybody else. I know how hard it sometimes must have felt but we appreciate you staying true to your own voice.

Here are a few more of his interiors, a group of his work that I really love.

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Andre Derain and Fauvism

Posted in Favorite Things, Quote, tagged , , , on April 15, 2019| 1 Comment »

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Fauvism was our ordeal by fire… colours became charges of dynamite. They were expected to charge light… The great merit of this method was to free the picture from all imitative and conventional contact.

—-Andre Derain (1880-1954)

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Les Fauves translates from French as the Wild Beasts. Fauvism was an art movement in the early 20th century that focused on color, line and a painterly surface, breaking away from both traditional representational painting and the Impressionist movement of that time that maintained many of the same values as traditional realism. It was a short lived movement, lasting only a few years, but its influence down through the years has been great. It was led primarily by Henri Matisse and Andre Derain, both artists who I greatly admire.

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Matisse’s Naïveté

Posted in Favorite Things, Motivation, Quote, tagged , , on March 14, 2019| 4 Comments »

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“You study, you learn, but you guard the original naïveté. It has to be within you, as desire for drink is within the drunkard or love is within the lover.”

― Henri Matisse

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I can always turn to Henri Matisse for something interesting, either in his work or in his words. While he was prolific in his painting there is also a wealth of quotes, interviews and essays from him that give insight into a warmly wise and giving spirit. I will admit that there are painters whose body of work more readily excite me but the words of Matisse never fail to provide inspiration and reassurance when I am seeking some form of validation of what I am doing.

For instance, he speaks of maintaining one’s own original naïveté as one learns and grows as an artist. That rawness and the natural sense of excitement that comes with it, is something I have also felt was important to maintain even as my craft has grown. I see the raw energy of naïveté as the blood that gives a painting its life force, that allows the viewer to see past the improbabilities and imperfections and see the beauty and truth being presented.

Maintaining that naïveté is much more difficult than you might think. You sometimes have to fight against the proficiency gained through years of practice and trade the reality of the world shared with everyone else for the reality contained within yourself, trusting that this inner world, imperfect as it is, will have a commonality that might speak to similar inner worlds among some of those who view it.

And that  brings us to another favorite Matisse quote, below. The link to the universe he mentions is very much the same thing that links one’s inner world to that of another. At least that’s how I see it. This seems like a good spot to end this. Have a great day

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“We ought to view ourselves with the same curiosity and openness with which we study a tree, the sky or a thought, because we too are linked to the entire universe.”

― Henri Matisse

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Matisse- Credo

Posted in Favorite Things, Influences, Motivation, Quote, tagged , on August 24, 2018| Leave a Comment »

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It is my dream to create an art which is filled with balance, purity and calmness, freed from a subject matter that is disconcerting or too attention-seeking. In my paintings, I wish to create a spiritual remedy, similar to a comfortable armchair which provides rest from physical expectation for the spiritually working, the businessman as well as the artist.

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–Henri Matisse

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I have read (and shared) a different translation of the quote above from the great Henri Matisse. It aligns perfectly with my own hopes for my work and stands almost as a credo. At the end of the day, I am trying to create work that allows any viewer, no matter how much or how little they know about art, to withdraw into their own inner space while at the same time feel a sense of communion with a greater whole. To move into a place that feels safe and comforting.
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A spiritual remedy, as he calls it.
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It’s not something you can have in mind, however. It only comes in the process, as the thoughts that may have been pressing on my mind are set aside and my own emotions are leveled off to a state of calm. It has to be my own spiritual remedy before it becomes that of anyone else.
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When it happens, it is a lovely thing and the world seems somewhat right.

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Loneliness Remembers What Happiness Forgets

Posted in Favorite Things, Music, Video, tagged , , , , , , on April 10, 2016| 1 Comment »

Henry Matisse Blue Nudes I-II-III-IV 1952I wanted to feature some music this morning that kind of jibed with the Henri Matisse Blue Nude cut-outs above that the artist  produced in the early 1950’s.  I wasn’t sure what I wanted but I settled on something  from composer Burt Bacharach.  

Bacharach, along with lyricist Hal David, collaborated with singer Dionne Warwick a number of times back in the 1960’s when they had an amazing string of hits that didn’t really sound like anything else on the radio at the time.  It’s an unmistakable sound, light and breezy but complex and full.

When I was looking I came across this video that shows how beautifully Bacharach and Warwick worked together.  It’s interesting to see how he communicates his vision for the song to Warwick and how she responds.  It goes a long ways towards explaining why she was such a perfect vessel for his music.  The clip ends with the full recording of the song.

So, have a great Sunday and here’s Burt Bacharach and Dionne Warwick with Loneliness Remembers What Happiness Forgets.  I may steal that title at some point…

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Quote of the Week/ Finishing

Posted in Painting, Quote, tagged , , , , on March 26, 2015| 2 Comments »

matisse.la musiqueI want to reach the state of condensation of sensations which constitutes a picture. Perhaps I might be satisfied momentarily with a work finished at one sitting, but I would soon get bored looking at it; therefore, I prefer to continue working on it so that later I may recognize it as a work of my mind…Nowadays, I try to infuse some calm into my pictures and I keep working at them until I have succeeded in doing so.

–-Henri Matisse, 1908

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 It seems like every artist has a different answer for the question of  when a painting is done.  Whistler and several others said it was when all traces of its creation have been concealed on the surface.   Some say it is when the artist achieves his aim and others say they are never finished.  Edward Munch ( The Scream) said that a piece is done after it has had time to mature, weathered a few showers and endured the elements, including nail scratches.

I tend to go with the never finished group although Munch’s definition is appealing to my love of weathering and patina.  My goal is to have the work complete enough that they can exist on their own,to  be alive in the outer world.  In that respect, because they are human creations, I view them  very much as I view other humans– never quite complete and always imperfect.  That’s just how we are and I am certainly no different.

 I am a collage of imperfections that is still a work-in-progress.  If I saw me hanging on the wall I might want to take a brush and soften an edge here or there and add color in certain parts of my composition.  But I probably would not do it because those imperfections actually become part of the composition, create the contrasts that give us, as a painting, life.  And that , even with the flaws and weathering exposed, pleases me.

None of us is perfectly painted.  Nor should we be.

 

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Fauve Attitude

Posted in Influences, Quote, Technique/History, tagged , , , , , , on November 6, 2014| 1 Comment »

Maurice de Vlaminck- Houses at Chatou 1905

Maurice de Vlaminck- Houses at Chatou 1905

When I get my hands on painting materials I don’t give a damn about other people’s painting… every generation must start again afresh.

— Maurice de Vlaminck

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I have to admit I don’t know much about French painter Maurice de Vlaminck  (vlah-mink)  who lived from 1876 until 1958.  His work is best known for a short period  in the early years of the 20th century when he was considered one of the leading lights, along with Andre Derain and Henri Matisse, of the Fauve movement.  Fauve translates as wild beast and the style of these painters was very much like  that to the sensibilities of that time.  It was brightly colored with brash brushwork and little attention paid to detail.  It was all about expression and emotion.

I recognize some of his early Fauvist work, mainly for the obvious influence of Vincent Van Gogh  it exhibits, and none of his later which becomes less colorful and exuberant, perhaps shaped by his experiences in WW I.  But his name is one that I have often shuffled over without paying too much time to look deeper.

Maurice de Vlaminck At the Bar 1900

Maurice de Vlaminck- At the Bar 1900

But I came across this quote and it struck me immediately.  It was a feeling that I have often felt  when I immerse myself in my work.  All thoughts of other painters– of their influence, of comparisons and artistic relationships– fade into nothing.  It is only me at that moment faced with the task of pulling something new and alive from the void.  I can’t worry myself at that moment about what other painters are doing.  Their whats and hows and whys  are all moot to me then because I am only trying to express something from within.  It might only exist and live for me in that instant, though I hope it transcends the moment, but that is the whole purpose and all of the works of all the painters throughout time can’t change this singular expression of this moment.

This single, simple quote brought me into kinship with de Vlaminck and made me promise myself to explore more deeply into his work and life so that when I come across his name in the future I don’t simply skim past without a thought.  But when I am painting, rest assured I will not be thinking of Maurice de Vlaminck.  And that is as it should be…

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Matisse

Posted in Favorite Things, Influences, Quote, tagged , , , on July 7, 2014| Leave a Comment »

matisse_icarusI am after an art of equilibrium and purity, an art that neither unsettles nor confuses.  I would like people who are weary, stressed and broken to find peace and tranquility as they look at my pictures.

-Henri Matisse

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I list Henri Matisse, the French painter who was at the forefront of modern painting at the beginning of the 20th century, as a favorite and an influence.  It’s an odd pick because it is based not simply on the impact of his imagery.  In reality, some of his work does nothing for me and brings little reaction.  But there are pieces that do and when you couple these with his words on his art, his life’s ever evolving body of work  and the fearlessness with which he approached his art- well, then there is an overall impact that is huge.

I find myself nodding in agreement often when I read his words, like the quote at the top here, which sums up what I have been trying to say about my own work for some time.   His words shed a lot of light on his work for me, allow me to better see how he was seeing his own work which makes me appreciate it all the more as it changed over the course of his long career.  Born in 1869, Matisse began painting in the early 1890’s and worked at his art until his death in 1954.

Matisse Blue Nude cut ou 2tI use the term worked at this art because Matisse was not only a painter.  As health problems hindered him, he turned to other forms of expression such as cutting forms out of paper.  The image at the top, Jazz, and Blue Nude, shown here on the left, are two of his best known examples of the cut outs, both considered masterpieces of modern art.  This ability to express himself fully through his art despite hardships is really inspiring as is the fearless way in which he approached his painting.

It is bold and sure, with human curves throughout.  More about harmonizing color and simplifying form than capturing reality.  It makes me want to pick up a loaded brush and just paint freely and easily.  Let loose.

There’s a lot more to say about Matisse.  It took me a while to see why he was so influential to so many artists but now that I can fully see the scope of his work, I now better understand and take his influence and inspiration with me.

Matisse-The-Dessert-Harmony-in-Red-Henri-1908-fast Matisse- La_danse_ 1st Version MOMA

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