ArchGuide: Matisse and African Art: Art Inspiration for this Month

"Creativity takes courage." Henri Matisse

Truly, to be creative, to do something different, you needn't bother about what your friends will think or say, or whether your teacher would appreciate or not. Do not be restrict your creativity to other people's whims or wishes. You create what you wish to create, what you think is right, what you feel is beautiful. You work hard and don't be afraid to fail. This is what I told my students before I introduced the artist of the month. They were a little surprised since this was something different than what we usually start with on other days.

Creativity takes Courage - Henri Matisse

Collage by Art Hours

I was searching for inspirational ideas from some popular artists work to show to my students and I came across the works of the great Henri Matisse - the French painter from the 20th Century and a rival of Pablo Picasso. His paintings were colorful innovations that were considered important for the French movement of Fauvism and laid the foundation for expressive and decorative paintings. Though still life and the nude remained his favorite subjects, towards the end of his life he made important contributions to collages with a series of works using cut-out shapes of color. This is what got me more interested in his work. However, before we proceed in that area here are some key features of his art that we all need to understand.

His work was influenced by art from other cultures and he had incorporated the decorative qualities of Islamic Art, the angularity of African sculptures and flatness of Japanese prints into his own style.
His use of color and pattern is often deliberately disorienting and unsettling.
He used pure colors and white of exposed canvas to create a light filled atmosphere of his Fauve paintings.

Some of his important paintings include:

Harmony in red, The joy of life, Woman with a hat, Green stripe, The open window and more...

As I said earlier, what interested me more was Henri Matisse's painting with scissors. In the late 1940s, Henri Matisse turned to cut paper - a radical innovation which involved cutting out painted sheets into various shapes and sizes - from vegetal to abstract - which he then arranged into lively compositions.

Here, are some work by Art Hours students that we made inspired by Henri Matisse and some inspired by African art also. Henri Matisse was inspired by North African masks and sculptures, while we at Art Hours dared to differ a bit by referring to African prints instead. Hence, our work that you below, was both an inspiration from Henri Matisse's works and African prints.

Painting on A5 size paper, inspired by African Prints

Why introduce Henri Matisse and African prints together to the kids?
Well, the session was an extended session on patterns that we were doing one week, but the kids seemed disinterested and less motivated to draw patterns. African prints seemed to be an interesting way to understand patterns, shapes and use of colors. Also, Henri Matisse paintings are difficult to interpret and understand by kids who belong in the age group of 8-10. But his cut-outs are beautiful works and serve as a great inspiration to the kids who wish to explore with shapes. You will also notice that the African prints are mostly geometric patterns and Henri Matisse cut-outs are free forms and shapes. So this exercise turned out great in a way that combined simple geometric patterns with free shapes and forms.

Have a look at what we did at Art Hours inspired by the artist Henri Matisse...