Henri Matisse, Luxe, Calme et Volupté, 1904

• Luxe, Calme et Volupté

  Luxuriance, calm and voluptuousness
• Painting


  • Size: 98.5 cm × 118.5 cm
  • Medium: oil on canvas
  • Location: Musée d'Orsay, Paris
• Painting and sculpture must include at least one work in each of the following styles: Fauvism, Cubism, German Expressionism, Futurism, Dada, Surrealism. Architecture must include at least one work of Modernism.
• Henri Matisse: 'What I dream of is an art of balance, of purity and serenity, devoid of troubling or depressing subject matter.'
• Pastoral theme of 'bathers' in a landscape

  Traced back to the work of Poussin
• Luxe calme et Volupte


  Taken from the chorus of a poem by Charles Baudelaire, L'Invitation Voyage, which describes an escape to an Arcadian land of sensuality and calm
• Such pastoral scenes were traditional and academic at the time. Matisse's handling jars with that of tradition.
• Proto-Fauvist


  Anticipating Fauvism
• Luxe, Calme et Volupté is the 'the starting point of Fauvism'
• This painting was first shown at the Salon des Indépendants, 1905 and is an 'icon of early modernist painting'
• Matisse's Fauve Period


  Brilliant and arbitrary use of intense colour
• Matisse


  Did not set out to describe objects in nature or seek colour vibrations of the retina, but rather use colour as a means of pure and decorative expression
• Female nude


  Used for its fluid line and extension of the expression of nature – removed from its mythologising attributes and utterly modern on the path to abstraction
• Colour and brush work


  • Vivid, saturated, unnaturalistic. Cool and warm tones, complementary in primary: red and green, blue and orange and yellow and violet. The dot or point has been replaced by the 'tache', or touch
• Painted while the artist stayed with the pointillist painter, Signac, at his home in Saint-Tropez on the Côte d'Azur
• Matisse's title


  Comes from Charles Baudelaire's poem, "L'invitation au voyage (Invitation to a Voyage)" from his collection
• Line


  • Harmonious, fluid, more classical than 'wild'. Surface is activated and dynamic and yet the subject is calm, languid
• Matisse: 'What I dream of is an art of balance, of purity and serenity, devoid of troubling or depressing subject matter'
• Matisse's avant-garde style, his subjectivity was entirely indicative of the 'brave new world' of which he was a part
• L'Invitation au voyage


  Poem by Charles Baudelaire, from his collection Les Fleurs du mal (The Flowers of Evil)
• Newspaper critic Louis Vauxcelles picked out Matisse as the leader of the 'Fauves' group
• The only serious article expounded from the Fauves group was Matisse's 'Notes of a Painter' 1908
• Pointillism/divisionism technique


  Individual dots of colours placed strategically on the canvas to appear blended from a distance
• Matisse first adopted the pointillist style after reading Signac's essay "Eugène Delacroix au Néo-impressionisme" in 1898
• Simplification of form and detail

  A trademark of Fauvism
• Matisse made this painting in the south of France, in the town of Saint-Tropez, while vacationing with family and friends
• Matisse favoured discrete strokes of colour that emphasized the painted surface over the naturalistic portrayal of a scene
• Matisse used a palette of pure, high-tone primary colours to render the landscape and outlined the figures in blue
• The painting takes its title, which means "Richness, calm, and pleasure," from a line by the 19th-century poet Charles Baudelaire, and it shares the poem's subject: escape to an imaginary, tranquil refuge
• Naturalistic portrayal


  A realistic depiction of a scene
• Matisse's painting Luxe, Calme et Volupté

  • Used a palette of pure, high-tone primary colours
  • Outlined the figures in blue
• Title of the painting

  Means "Richness, calm, and pleasure"
• The painting's title


  Comes from a line by the 19th-century poet Charles Baudelaire
• The painting


  Shares the poem's subject: escape to an imaginary, tranquil refuge
• The balance and serenity Matisse strove for in this early painting would remain consistent in his work for the rest of his career
• The spirit of Baudelaire's poem is very dreamy and that notion of escaping reality is certainly here in Matisse's painterly homage
• Ways in which art has been used and interpreted by past and present societies

  • Practical and aesthetic functions of the 2D, 3D and architectural works
  • Detailed knowledge and understanding of at least one critical text that discusses the chosen specified artists: their works, contribution, and influences
  • Motives for, and role of, patronage in the 2D, 3D and architectural commissioned works
  • Significance of original location and display choices in the 2D and 3D works: the changing role of the Salon and the rise of new dealers
  • Significance of choice of location and setting in architectural works
  • Impact of subsequent environments and settings of the 2D/3D and architectural works on audiences
• Matisse's Luxe, Calme et Volupté and Joy of Life, 1905–6, express the contented harmony of Man with Nature, the inspiration behind the first paintings of the fête champêtre theme over 300 years earlier
• Puzzle picture


  A work that is part reality, part fantasy and a total departure from the artist's earlier works
• Matisse made copies of Arcadian landscapes in the Louvre and yet this is in many ways antithetical in how 'contemporary' it is