Page 12 - Studio International - July 1966

Matisse and subject matter

Comment by Jasia Reichardt

When considering the radical twentieth- constitute the painting. Even his titles depicting the object out of scale or out of
century influences on contemporary art it stress that the identity of the sitter is vastly context was the primary issue in
is possible to distinguish two major subservient to the colour of her garment. transforming it into a work of art.
categories into which they fit—the As in the case of the nude in the yellow Matisse's approach to subject matter was
influences generally inspired by original or armchair (1926), the figure becomes a confined to the arrangement and selection
programmatic ideas (Duchamp, de Stijl, foil for four separate floral patterns of the of elements which in themselves did not
Dada), and those which are more directly screen, cushion, chair cover, and appear to possess any intrinsic value, and
aligned with, the impact or expression of upholstery. of which the choice represented neither a
the actual works themselves. The latter In 1946 Louis Aragon set out to make an social nor an intellectual comment; they
stand to gain less through close analysis, inventory of the objects and particularly were simply relevant to his pictorial
or indeed one could even say that such the armchairs which Matisse painted. His intention. In this way Matisse can be seen
analysis might be irrelevant to both the intention was to photograph the real to follow in direct line from the
concept and the understanding of the work. objects and to compare them with the impressionists and post-impressionists,
Among the great artists to whose work this paintings. The project was never whose search for total aesthetic harmony
applies is Matisse. Discussed in recent completed, and perhaps Aragon himself was supported by the belief that any thing
years probably more than ever before, the finally decided that the undertaking was the artist chose as his subject was as good
work produced in the course of more than futile, and that the collection of as another. Matisse did not draw one's
sixty years of his career has made more photographs would not necessarily embody attention to the identity of the sitter or
venues in the exploration and understanding any understanding or appreciation of the location. By examining any given situation
of modern art, in terms of pure painting, paintings themselves. It is true that he drew open conclusions about the
than most programmatic ventures Matisse's work is largely based on a very formal aspects of the composition, and with
aspiring to relate art to society, art to limited number of items as subjects, but diffused, generalized sensuality applied the
theory, or art to art. this limitation only stresses the vast personal same attitude towards a voluptuous model
Matisse's work makes nonsense of any resources and innovations he brought to as towards a bowl of fruit.
firm distinctions that one might like to commonplace though carefully-selected To his limited range of subject matter
make between figuration and abstraction— items. Matisse introduced his own idiosyncracies—
such a division simply becomes irrelevant In the recent spate of articles dealing it is as if he had stripped the composition in
and redundant. Like the two sides of a with the artist and the object, it may seem front of him of its particular identity
single coin, what is of essential interest is strange at first that little or nothing has in order to endow it with a new one.
the value of the coin rather than whether been said about Matisse's armchairs, Flesh colour might have been evoked
it is heads or tails that is uppermost; and windows, tables, flower vases, not to through its complementary, forms
Matisse's aim to reach 'that state of mention screens and various pieces of simplified and compressed, outlines
condensation of sensation which constitutes ornamentation. The reasons for this are emerging as narrow gaps between areas of
a picture' could have been voiced with not as cryptic as they seem. In the cases colour.
equal reason by Pollock or Bacon, Picasso of Lichtenstein's frankfurters, Warhol's One can make analogies between
or Barnett Newman. Brillo packs, Oldenburg's soft telephone Giacometti's insistence on sculpting the
It is not surprising that comment on his and Jasper Johns' beer cans, these items `real' head, the head as he saw it, and
pre-Fauve pointillist painting Luxe, calme et (i.e. the subject matter) are very closely Matisse's concern with retaining the
volupté precedes most dissertations on his linked with the significance or the content the illusion of third dimension. Whereas
work. Irrespective of any formal of the work. In Matisse's case they merely Giacometti's insistence seems unrealistic
connotations, the title, which Matisse took act as a vehicle or point of departure for in view of the sort of heads he did create,
from Baudelaire, refers to the atmosphere organization of space, form, and colour. Matisse's aim was also contradicted by the
and approach of his subsequent work. The approach of the pop artist is artist himself. The process by which his
Few artists have dealt quite so exemplified by the intention to reinstate forms were flattened and simplified, or
specifically with subject matter and yet the banal and the commonplace, and even sometimes made more complex (as in
relied so little on the particular specificity through this means to deal with the more Decorative figure on an ornamental background,
of the objects depicted. Few have never crucial, if more tenuous, aspects of painting, 1927) through use of pattern, produced
allowed references to the object to be lost, sculpture or object making. In the case of the sort of effect which Escher deliberately
and simultaneously applied significantly Jasper Johns' beer cans (casts of beer cans developed in his etchings. The perspective
abstract techniques to composition. In painted to look like the original article) looks plausible enough until one tries to
Matisse it is the stance, positioning, the significant element is that one of the work it out. In Matisse the dark and light
relationship of objects, form and colour, cans is almost imperceptibly smaller than shading often contradict the plasticity of
and the liberties taken with them that the other. In many cases the process of the form, while flatness stresses the surface

Contributors to this issue Gene Baro publishes widely on the visual arts and on Ella Winter (Mrs Donald Ogden Stewart), the writer,
literature, and contributes to Art International, The was born in Australia and brought up in England.
London Magazine, The New Yorker, and other periodi- Her autobiography, And Not To Yield, was published
Jasia Reichardt, who contributes a monthly Com- cals. He is also London Correspondent of Arts Maga- by Harcourt, Brace & Co. two years ago. She contri-
ment to Studio International, is assistant director of the zine and Art in America (both of New York). butes articles on a wide range of subjects to British
Institute of Contemporary Arts. and U.S. magazines. Her collection of paintings,
Frank Popper was recently made a Doctor of the drawings and sculpture was started about thirty
Patrick Procktor exhibited in the first 'New Genera- University of Paris for a thesis entitled L'image du years ago.
tion' exhibition at the Whitechapel Gallery in 1964, mouvement dans /es arts plastiques depuis 1860,
and has had two one-man exhibitions at the Redfern which deals at length with Kinetic art and the work of Edward Lucie-Smith, poet and critic, David Thomp-
Gallery—in 1963 and 1965. He has contributed occa- Agam. His thesis will be published as a book by son, critic and writer, and Dore Ashton, the American
sional articles to The New Statesman and other Gauthier-Villars, Paris, this autumn. writer, contribute regular commentaries to Studio
magazines. International.