Matisse's genius changed the course of XNUMXth century art, imprinting his new vision on every artistic genre. None of these, however, fascinated him as much as the representation of the figure, especially female, to the point of engaging him for the entire span of his career in an incessant research through all techniques. This is the theme around which the exhibition that Palazzo dei Diamanti is dedicated to a giant of the history of modern art is centered, evoking his creative path and, at the same time, highlighting the close relationships between his pictorial production, sculptural and drawing.
With this review, edited by Isabelle Monod Fontaineformer Deputy Director of the Centre Pompidou and internationally recognized Matisse scholar, the Ferrara Art Foundation intends to propose an all-round and not obvious portrait of the French master, which highlights his skills as an alchemist of color, but also his great graphic and sculptural talent. A selection of works from museums and private collections from all over the world will recount the adventure through which Matisse, like Picasso, was inspired by the most classic of themes, that of the figure, and subverted its traditional representation .
Visitors will be welcomed by the magnetic Self-Portrait of 1900 (Paris, Center Pompidou) together with youthful and powerful studies on the model. The joyful vitality of the Fauve season will then be evoked by a radiant painting of pure colors, such as the Portrait of André Derain (1905, London, Tate), and by the creations born under the suggestion of Cézanne's painting and African sculpture, such as the fundamental bronze Reclining Nude (1907, Center Pompidou) and the canvas Standing Nude (1907, Tate), both surprising for the scansion of shapes and expressive potential.
The exhibition will therefore confront the visitor with three milestones from 1909: the bronze La serpentina, the canvas Nude with white scarf, from the Statens Museum for Kunst in Copenhagen, and the Bather from MoMA, works that constitute one of the highest achievements matissiani, in the floating arabesque of the bodies capable of transmitting a sense of primordial fusion with the environment.
What feeds the artist's imagination is above all the presence of a model in his atelier, the emotion she awakens in him and the very pleasure of portraying her. In the years of the First World War, the female figure is at the center of an almost obsessive work with which Matisse tries to lay bare their essence, as demonstrated by the effigies of Lorette with their mysterious charm (for example The Two Sisters, 1917, Denver Art Museum, and Seated Nude from the Back, c. 1917, Philadelphia Museum of Art).
A radical turning point is marked by the post-war works which reflect the spell of the Côte d'Azur and the rediscovery of Ingres and Renoir (Girls in the Garden, 1919, La Chaux-de-Fonds, Musée des Beaux-Arts). Matisse now lets himself be seduced by the reflections of light on the figure of the model and on the exotic furnishings which surround her, as shown by two extraordinary works such as the bronze Large Seated Nude (1922-29, Philadelphia Museum of Art), in which the majestic figure her forms in space, or the Odalisque with gray trousers (1926-27, Paris, Musée de l'Orangerie), in which she appears immersed in a sumptuous mosaic of decorative motifs.
The monumental Nymph in the Forest (1935-43, Nice, Musée Matisse), a masterpiece such as Still Life with Sleeping Woman (1940, Washington, National Gallery of Art) and magnificent drawings (Reclining Nude, 1938, MoMA; Seated Young Woman with Dress a rete, 1939, Basel, Fondation Beyeler) embody the new change of direction following the prestigious decorative commission for the Barnes Foundation in the United States and the illustrations of Mallarmé's poems. The painter's muse is evoked here in a space bathed in light where her body, vegetation and objects compose a lyrical and essential frieze.
The exhibition will be closed by the testimonies of dthe astonishing vitality and inexhaustible power of imagination of the old master: the atelier interiors pulsating with vivid tones (Young woman in white on a red background, 1946, Lyon, Musée des Beaux-Arts; Blue interior with two girls, 1947, University of Iowa Museum of Art) or even revolutionary works such as the famous book Jazz (1943-47, National Library of Florence) and the series of Acrobats (1952, Center Pompidou). These creations embody the essence of Matisse's art, capable with a few strokes of touching the deepest chords of the soul and instilling a sense of perfect harmony, exerting an extraordinary influence on the artists of his time and of the generations to come.
MATISSE, THE FIGURE. The strength of the line, the emotion of colour
Ferrara, Diamond Palace, February 22 – June 15, 2014
