Editorial Reviews

The extraordinary significance of the painter and sculptor Henri Matisse in the history of modern art, but also his influence, was no less decisive than that of his main rival, PabloPicasso. In fact, Matisse's stylistic liberation actually goes one step further in the pursuit of his own personal goal — the perfect synthesis of line and color — by which he sought revolutionary approaches to the great tradition of French painting by drawing upon its classical aspects. For those who wish to know more about this lodestar of modern art and follow the adventurous path of his creative career, this publication is surely the most comprehensive and informative source available. Lavishly illustrated, its authoritative commentaries trace the artist's search for balance, purityand serenity, from the chromatic brilliance of his Fauve period, through his travels, the Orient, geometric synthesis (it was he who introduced Picasso to African art by givinghim his first mask), and the odalisques to the final triumph when, at the age of eighty, he invented his gouache cut-outs that culminated in his illustrations for Jazz and allowed him to achieve his goal of sculpting in paint just as a sculptor works in stone. Matisse is widely acknowledged as an artist whose canvases are extremely difficult to reproduce in print. With this in mind, each work presented here has been painstakingly compared with the respective original, in close collaboration with the artist's grandson, Claude Duthuit. The bard of color deserves no less.

Customer Reviews

Matisse, 2005-07-22
by T. Nokes

Pretty good book. I used it for an essay at school and it provided some valuable information and was my primary source. I thought it was a little quote heavy, as half the book is quotes from Matisse or art critics. Some are valuable, but others are just useless fluff. For example, in the begining there is a page long paragraph devoted to why everyone called Matisse a "doctor" and a hedonist or something. It bears no significance to what Matisse did.

I also wish that the book would have talked more extensively about his impact and effects on art. The book says some but the information isn't really centralized and its sort of here and there throughout the book. I wish there would have been a couple pages at the end or something about it.

Otherwise there is a lot of pictures and they're all real good quality. Also had pretty good analysis of some of his paintings, like their meanings and compositional elements that make it great etc... It also covers his entire life, before Fauvism to paper collages. I recommend it.

A good book with accurate color, 2001-01-11
by Jim Wang (Holmdel, NJ United States)

This is a wonderful book. The color seems very accurate. There are many artbooks with inaccurate color reproduced. I compared several photos in this book with the real Matisse's paintings, the color is all accurate.