Matisse's Bonheur De Vivre And Les Demoiselles

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AHIST 1401: UNIT 7 WRITTEN ASSIGNMENT There is no denying that Picasso and Matisse were inspired by Paul Cezanne’s art. How though, does their art, specifically Matisse’s Bonheur de Vivre and Picasso’s Les Demoiselles d’Avignon, relate to Cezanne’s The Large Bathers? How do they both simultaneously show that inspiration as well as break free from Cezanne’s work of art? Let’s start with Matisse. Henri Matisse painted Bonhuer da Vivre between 1905 and 1906. It was oil paint on a canvas, and was considered to be in the style of Fauve. Like Cezanne, Matisse filled the canvas with bright colors, elements of nature, and nude figures. The inspiration can be seen in how Matisse, also like Cezanne, used the canvas as a stage, not just a flat surface …show more content…

After viewing Matisse’s Bonheur de Vivre in a mutual friend’s dining room, Picasso set out to out-do Matisse, which he was able to accomplish with his 1907 painting Demoiselles d’Avignon. Like Cezanne and Matisse, Picasso also used bright colors and nude figures. This particular painting is named after a street in Barcelona that is famed for its brothel. Although Picasso was driven to ‘out-do’ his competitor Matisse whom got his inspiration from Cezanne, his created a whole new style born from the implications of Cezanne’s art. Where Matisse and Cezanne used curved lines and size to convey space and time, Picasso used jagged lines. As Khan Academy put it “Picasso, intending to make a name for himself, radically compressed the space of his canvas and replaced sensual eroticism with a kind of aggressively crude pornography.” Picasso’s space was interior where as Matisse and Cezanne’s was exterior. The colors Picasso chose to use were more deeper tones and complimented interior light. Artists pull inspiration from all sort of things. For Matisse, it was the color and flow of his paintings like Cezanne’s. For Picasso, it was his need to succeed and out-do those that came before him. He was even known to pillage from other’s art and styles and make it his own. The great thing is that art and artists continue to grow and adapt while still taking inspiration from the greats before

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