Henri Matisse and Pablo Picasso - Essay Example

Henri Matisse and Pablo Picasso are two artists who dominated the art of the twentieth century and both loved painting women.  Matisse was Picasso’s senior by twelve years but they were able to develop a relationship of mutual respect and professionalism.  Matisse is a French artist known for his use of bold colors and fluid styling.  His love for color made him one of the primary leaders of the Fauves.  According to him, his style can be defined as an art of “balance, purity, and serenity”.  Matisse is recognized for his portraits of females, nudes, and odalisques.  He was also heavily influenced by the Post-Impressionists Gauguin and Van Gogh.

Picasso was a Spanish artist known as the founder of Cubism.  Unlike Matisse, Picasso’s paintings of women are grotesquely distorted.  He portrays the woman with darkness and vulgarity.  In the early years of the twentieth century, Picasso embarked on a series of paintings using the blue palette and melancholy themes.  After his Blue Period, came his Rose Period which emphasized a warmer palette and more cheerful themes. 

Picasso’s works were influenced by Matisse’s works, especially with his still-life paintings.  However, Picasso focused more on form and innovation while Matisse focused more on color and was less abstract.  Picasso uses a form with symmetry at different angles, geometrics, and inspiration from household tools.  On the other hand, Matisse always preferred bright colors even in his landscapes.  His colors change from light to dark but its mixtures make it even more creative.  Matisse does not have much attention to detail but he adheres to reality, unlike Picasso who would usually distort the images of his subjects.  The artworks of both artists were influenced by each other, more so when they developed a friendly rivalry.

One of the more famous works of Picasso is the “Les Demoiselles d’Avignon” which is an example of his neo-cubism, modernism, and impressionism.  This painting shows women who are immensely distorted.  Geometric shapes are used instead of curves to portray the bodies of the women.  The painting uses dark colors such as brown, black, and blue which makes the theme gloomy.   Matisse’s “Joy of Life” on the other hand depicts women more naturally by showing the right curves and proportions.  The mood of Matisse’s painting is livelier because of the colors that he used specifically, red, green, and yellow.  Although both paintings show a group of women, one can clearly see the difference in how they are portrayed by both artists.

The paintings above are examples of still life paintings of Picasso and Matisse.  Unlike other Matisse paintings, the colors are quite dull.  In contrast, Picasso emphasizes the shapes of the objects by using black outlines on the figures.  His colors are darker compared to those of Matisse. In Matisse’s painting, the objects seem to blend with the background because of its complimentary colors while in Picasso’s painting, the dark blue and gray background shows a sharp contrast between the colors of the lemon and the vase.                                      

The above paintings of both Picasso and Matisse show clearly how they influenced each other.  The paintings show the different interpretations of the two artists on one subject.  Again, we can see Matisse’s love for colors by painting the human body blue on a beige background.  On the other hand, Picasso simply used black and white.  The two paintings though, both show a distortion of the human body.