Henri Matisse

art-nouveau

Matisse Paintings 1869 - 1954 France, Art Nouveau Painter

Family Portrait, 1911

Oil on canvas, 194x143 cm

The Hermitage

Figure Compositions

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OIL PAINTING: Family Portrait, 1911
The other side of this coin was an intense interest in civilized craft. Matisse loved pattern, and pattern within pattern: not only the suave and decorative forms of his own compositions but also the reproduction of tapestries, embroideries, silks, striped awnings, curlicues, mottles, dots, and spots, the bright clutter of over-furnished rooms, within the painting. In particular he loved Islamic art, and saw a big show of it in Munich on his way back from Moscow in 1911. Islamic pattern offers the illusion of a completely full world, where everything from far to near is pressed with equal urgency against the eye. Matisse admired that, and wanted to transpose it into terms of pure colour. Some of the results were The Red Studio, 1911 and Family Portrait.