Old traditional works

Matisse's The Joy of Life1905 ——1906 Oil Painting

174x238 is collected by Marion Barnes Foundation, Pennsylvania, USA.

Background description of Joy in Life:

The Joy of Life is perhaps the most important work in Matisse's long artistic career. This painting reflects the characteristics of fauvism painting more clearly than his other works. The dull colors, curved and undulating lines and primitive and naive human figures in painting all show Gauguin's influence. Even the theme of this painting-people's living conditions in nature-reminds people of Gauguin's ideal life in Tahiti. In fact, this painting comes directly from Matisse's life in Corriol fishing village near the Spanish border in the summer of 1905, and is also closely related to the ancient dream of Xanadu, a mysterious paradise that has been lingering in the minds of Europeans for centuries, and has got rid of the ugliness and troubles of the world.

In this painting, Matisse depicts a clearing in the forest near Creole in his memory. The foreground of the picture is the deep blue sea, and the close-up beaches and grasslands are dotted with various postures and dynamic human bodies. The characters in the painting are reminiscent of the characters in the Greek vase painting and the lazy Parisian posture in Seurat's Sunday on the Big Bowl Island. This painting looks like a sketch, but in fact it implies the painter's deep understanding of the ancient traditional themes in European plastic arts. The image in the painting is reminiscent of a long series of pictures of Bacchus in European painters' works-from Benigni and Titian, to Rubens and Pu Sang, to Hua Tuo and Angel.

The innovation of this painting lies in the high simplification of the image. As early as when Matisse was a student in Moro Studio, his teacher said to him, "You were born to simplify painting." On this screen, everything that can be simplified is completely simplified by Matisse. He abandoned the tedious description of the body and the shaping of light, shadow and volume. All shapes are represented by flat painted surfaces and several light and smooth curves, which seems to tell people the true meaning of painting: painting is to arrange lines and colors rhythmically on a plane. The twisted figures and winding curves in the painting show some connection with the Art Nouveau movement. On the far left of the picture, the female body in the shape of a water snake wrapped with ivy looks more like an art nouveau desk lamp than a person. In the foreground on the right, a pair of lovers hugging and kissing seem to have a head. The colors in the painting are also freely and simply used by the factory. The painter refines the colors of natural objects with high purity, and combines and contrasts the color blocks drawn on the plane according to some internal needs, thus producing a musical rhythm. The pure and bright colors in the painting show the inner harmony between the artist's spiritual world and nature.

This painting is full of lyricism, which embodies the expressionist tendency of Matisse's painting. Matisse once said: "The most important thing I pursue is performance". As for the so-called performance, he explained: "In my opinion, performance is not composed of people's facial expressions or passion reflected by a strong dynamic. The overall layout of my painting is very expressive. The position occupied by a person or image. The gap and proportion around them are at work. The so-called composition is the art of arranging all kinds of factors that painters want to express their emotions in a decorative way. " Here, Matisse actually wants to organize a picture to convey some cheerful emotions through colors, lines and shapes. For him, those painting elements bring him endless pleasure, and he wants to convey that pleasant freshness to the audience through his own paintings.