Fauvism was the first of the avant-garde movements that flourished in France in

the early years of the twentieth century. The Fauve painters were the first to b
reak with Impressionism as well as with older, traditional methods of perception
. Their spontaneous, often subjective response to nature was expressed in bold,
undisguised brushstrokes and high-keyed, vibrant colors directly from the tube.
Henri Matisse (French, 1869 1954) and Andr Derain (French, 1880 1954) introduced unna
turalistic color and vivid brushstrokes into their paintings in the summer of 19
05, working together in the small fishing port of Collioure on the Mediterranean
coast (1975.1.194; 1982.179.29). When their pictures were exhibited later that
year at the Salon d'Automne in Paris (Matisse, The Woman with a Hat), they inspi
red the witty critic Louis Vauxcelles to call themfauves ("wild beasts") in his
review for the magazine Gil Blas. This term was later applied to the artists the
mselves.
The Fauves were a loosely shaped group of artists sharing a similar approach to
nature, but they had no definitive program. Their leader was Matisse, who had ar
rived at the Fauve style after earlier experimenting with the various Post-Impre
ssionist styles of Van Gogh, Gauguin, andCzanne, and the Neo-Impressionism of Seu
rat, Cross, and Signac. These influences inspired him to reject traditional thre
e-dimensional space and seek instead a new picture space defined by the movement
of color planes (1999.363.38; The Young Sailor I; 1999.363.41).
Another major Fauve was Maurice de Vlaminck (French, 1876 1958), who might be call
ed a "natural" Fauve because his use of highly intense color corresponded to his
own exuberant nature. Vlaminck took the final step toward embracing the Fauve s
tyle (1999.363.84; 1999.363.83) after seeing the second large retrospective exhi
bition of Van Gogh's work at the Salon des Indpendants in the spring of 1905, and
the Fauve paintings produced by Matisse and Derain in Collioure.
As an artist, Derain occupied a place midway between the impetuous Vlaminck and
the more controlled Matisse. He had worked with Vlaminck in Chatou, near Paris,
intermittently from 1900 on ("School of Chatou"), and spent the summer of 1905 w
ith Matisse in Collioure. In 1906 7, he also painted some twenty-nine scenes of Lo
ndon in a more restrained palette (1999.363.18).
Other important Fauvists were Kees van Dongen, Charles Camoin, Henri-Charles Man
guin, Othon Friesz, Jean Puy, Louis Valtat, and Georges Rouault. These were join
ed in 1906 by Georges Braque and Raoul Dufy.
For most of these artists, Fauvism was a transitional, learning stage. By 1908,
a revived interest in Paul Czanne's vision of the order and structure of nature h
ad led many of them to reject the turbulent emotionalism of Fauvism in favor of
the logic of Cubism. Braque became the cofounder with Picasso of Cubism. Derain,
after a brief flirtation with Cubism, became a widely popular painter in a some
what neoclassical manner. Matisse alone pursued the course he had pioneered, ach
ieving a sophisticated balance between his own emotions and the world he painted
(1984.433.16).
The Fauvist movement has been compared to German Expressionism, both projecting
brilliant colors and spontaneous brushwork, and indebted to the same late ninete
enth-century sources, especially Van Gogh. The French were more concerned with t
he formal aspects of pictorial organization, while the German Expressionists wer
e more emotionally involved in their subjects.
Henri Matisse
The Blue Window
Issy-les-Moulineaux, summer 1913
On view
Medium
Oil on canvas
Dimensions

51 1/2 x 35 5/8" (130.8 x 90.5 cm)

Credit
Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Fund
Object number
273.1939
Copyright
2015 Succession H. Matisse / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
When this painting was first reproduced, in the May 1914 edition of the journal
Les Soires de Paris, it was titled La Glace sans tain, or "the mirror without sil
vering," referring to a device known as a Claude mirror: the dark, red-framed sq
uare in the picture. Many artists used one of these slightly convex, dark-tinted
mirrors to clarify their compositions; a scene reflected in it is less colorful
than life, its compositional elements accentuated. Something close to that effe
ct is visible here in the structured vertical and horizontal bands and the cool
blue palette that Matisse painted over other layers of color, some of which are
still visible. As he simplified forms he reinforced them with incising and scrap
ing, in, for example, the cloud at top left. Matisse used this view twice in his
1913 drypoint Bell Flower.
Woman with a Hat
Woman with a Hat depicts Henri s wife, Amelie. The painting is currently being exh
ibited at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. This piece of art was created
by Henri in 1905 and it is known for the use of non-natural colors and form for
depiction of woman s face. This artwork represented the new ways of coloring.
Initially, this painting was considered offensive by critics when it was display
ed in Paris in 1905. The painting was criticized for usage of multiple non-natur
al colors to depict woman s face that gave it a mask-like appearance. Matisse s Woma
n with a Hatcombines pointillist color with post impressionistic technique.Woman
with a Hat was a revolutionary piece of artwork as it challenged the way art wa
s viewed by the critics and the viewers.