The Young Sailor II and Woman in an Armchair - Common Traits - Essay Example

“The Young Sailor II” and “Woman in an Armchair” It is not a secret that art has always been the reflection of historical events, social conditions and, generally, the stage of society’s development. Art always sensibly reacts to all changes occurring in the way of life, adversities or periods of prosperity, thus no artistic tendency or style emerges by itself, having no historical, social or cultural background. This is especially true for numerous tendencies in art and, particularly, in visual art, that emerged on the verge of the 19th and 20th centuries under the guise of modernism. At the turn of the twentieth century, culture and art encountered complicated reality of that epoch, more disastrous nature of societal development, aggravation of social controversies, conflicts caused by scientific and technological revolution. Global issues affecting entire humanity eventually led to the golden age of modernism. In the public conscience, the beginning of the 20th century was associated with impending Apocalypse, and thus the World Wars I and II and even the Titanic’s shipwreck were perceived as something quite coherent and self-evident. Endless debates about the upcoming fall of European civilization puzzled intellectuals of all nationalities, motivating them to seek the new way both in life and in art. Moreover, establishment of Salon des Indépendants, where artists discarded by conventional Paris salons, could exhibit their works and find independent art agents invigorated this search. Thus, what they came to is the common decision to find completely new forms in art, virtually denying conventionalism and historical experience. This had come to be the core idea of modernism as a phenomenon incorporating numerous styles: expressionism, Dadaism, futurism, cubism, fauvism and others. All these art trends sought to form their peculiar point of view on the reality, yet what was common and held them together was unconventionalism and daring nature. In this paper, we are speak about two artists who had tried a range of styles throughout their careers, seeking their own ways of expression within modernism. They are Henri Matisse and Pablo Picasso. Friends and rivals Critics state that ugliness was the essential feature of modern art: probably, this was the way modernist artists saw the world. Matisse and Picasso were among the most remarkable and prolific artists of the epoch, each trying his own path and his own ways of distancing from the experience of the ancestors. “If Henri Matisse was regarded as the father of modern art at the dawn of the twentieth century; Pablo Picasso was sleeping with the same muse” (Trachtman, 2003). They first met in 1906 due to Gertrude Stein’s efforts, as the writer invited Matisse to visit Picasso’s studio in Montmartre. Although the two great artists had never met before, they were well aware of each other’s work and progress and had already plunged into a vigorous competition (Richardson, 2003). Since that time, Matisse and Picasso were in odd relationships until Matisse’s death: they were both friends and rivals seeking to surpass each other, scrutinizing and criticizing each other’s works. Periods of their lifetime and career coincided, making them nearly the most interesting dyad in the history of modernism. However, their perceptions of the world and – respectively – ways of expressing these perceptions were quite different. In second half of the 20th century’s first decade, when they met, Picasso was gradually moving to establish his new peculiar style, analytical cubism, whereas Matisse experienced transition from expressionism to one more new and daring style, fauvism. Despite differences in methods of expressing reality perception, both artists (and both styles) insisted that the new art should deny realistic depiction of reality, which focuses on merely what a human eye sees, and transit to depiction of true sense of objects, communication of emotional states and feelings through paintings. Fauvism Fauvism as the new tendency in modernist art was established by a group of enthusiastic painters, including Matisse. Thus, development of fauvism is closely connected with Matisse’s acquiring his peculiar style during the first decade of the 20th century. Influenced by Gustave Moreau, Henri Matisse “turned away from using subtle hues of mixed paints and began applying bright, unmixed color to his paintings as a means of personal expression» (Wolf, 2014). The essence of fauvism (fauve is translated as wild) lied in simplification of the depicted objects and use of bold saturated colors, which often were used in unnatural combinations and placed in a very subjective way. Elements of form were simplified, yet color was emphasized as the major means of expression. Fauvists didn’t seek to play with colors in order to create volume in their paintings, they also didn’t seek to create realistic depiction of reality. Instead, they wanted to communicate emotions via exaltation of colors. In Matisse’s legacy, transition from expressionism to fauvism as a part of his artistic pursuits is clearly traced in two portraits created during the summer of 1906 in “Mediterranean fishing village of Collioure” (Prospero, 2012). These two works are titled “The Young Sailor I” and “The Young Sailor II” and are completely different, though they depict the same sitter in the same garments and pose. Whereas the first version is rather figurative, the second one illustrates transition to fauvist tendencies, being more abstract, flat and strategic. “The Young Sailor I” still demonstrates interplay of more complex mixed (and not so saturated and bright) colors creating volume, yet brushstrokes are already rather loose and somewhat frenetic. The second version of “The Young Sailor” is completely different. The sailor’s depiction is simplified to such extent that it even reminds a childish drawing. However, the figure is distinct and is clearly identified (unlike figures in Picasso’s cubist paintings). One sees a young man wearing a cap, green pants and a blue pullover (Prospero, 2012) and sitting on a chair. Fauvist traditions become obvious already from the candy-pink lurid background, its solid coloring and the way it is combined with colors of the boy’s clothes. Saturated greens and blues of the clothing are painted with wild, extremely loose brushstrokes, whereas the boy’s face looks much like a mask, with more homogeneous structure, flat color and primitive forms. Moreover, unnatural redness of his right ear makes the face look much like an African mask. Unusual combination of colors, these bold pink in front of dark greens and blues, speak for subjective perception of color by the artist; Matisse sought to show that not subtle mixed shades and smooth gradations, but such bold and frenetic combinations are truly able to impose emotional charge of the artwork. However, this work was experimental, a part of style pursuit, and it is rather modest in color use yet. Matisse’s later works will be rich with saturated blatant colors (for instance, “Portrait of Lydia Delectorskaya”, 1947). Analytical cubism Similar to Matisse, Picasso was in perpetual pursuit of the stylistic devices and forms that would enable communicating inner essence of things. Analytical cubism, an innovative style that had eventually influenced development of visual art for the rest of the century, existed in his works only two and a half years. The first principle of this style was almost complete elimination of color, because, according to Picasso, color weakened the effect produced by the picture. Thereby, he even criticized Matisse’s experiments (and Matisse was engaged in fauvism at that time), insisting that it is a trick of vision that makes people see the world in colors. Thus, Picasso’s paintings in analytical cubism are almost monochromatic. Instead, the author focused on shape and volume. The second principle is elimination of differences between objects’ textures, materials; nothing is to stand out and be completely separated. This rule was motivated by Picasso’s perception of reality as a unitary entity, and the belief that everything in this world consists of the same substance. Thirdly, the artist denied perspective view on things: if the aim of painting is to depict the concept of an object, distance of its location is of no significance. Among the model paintings of this period, there is one of Picasso’s female portraits, “Woman in an Armchair” (1909). Naturally, looking at this painting for the first time, one is unlikely to see the woman – the painting consists of geometric blocks, almost monochromatic, looking the same throughout the picture. Here, it is clear that Picasso wanted to demonstrate the subject from all possible perspectives and angles and thus tried to combine several views of it in a single picture. The painter sought to show the real world objects not only in the way the human eye perceives them, but also in forms available for human mind. “Decomposing” his models into fragments reminding geometric figures and assembling them in his own discretion, Picasso left hints so that the viewer could understand what is depicted in the paintings. This attributes were parts of faces (noses, eyes, and lips) or, for instance, schematic silhouettes of faces created with edges of blocks. In the analyzed picture, we see application of all the methods described above, however, “Woman in an Armchair” (1909) was created in the beginning of Picasso’s cubistic period, and “decomposition” into geometric blocks is not quite distinct yet. Color component is not eliminated completely, as both background and the figure possess dull shades of emerald green, blue, ochre and burnt sienna; however, the method of color use is radically different from that of Matisse. At the same time, one can already see interplay of geometric elements (esp. of the background) where shades gradations create distinctive volume. Yet, Picasso didn’t apply geometric transformation to full extent in this picture: there are still many rather smooth curving lines and indistinctive geometric elements constituting the subject. Moreover, this painting features rather expressive brushstrokes that can be easily identified: for example, in the bottom left part of the painting. On later stages of this method’s development, Picasso will use rather sharp distinctive ages and more homogeneous textures (like in “Girl with a Mandolin). Again, decomposing the figure of a woman into yet inarticulated fragments, the author gives a hint for the viewer to identify the subject of the painting: a curve resembling a brow, interplay of color looking like a cheekbone, a line drawing a silhouette of the face profile, curves hinting at the back of the armchair etc. Conclusion From the provided analysis, one can easily conclude that directions of work the two artists practiced were rather different and sometimes even opposite. No surprise that this fact sparked much criticism of each other’s works. However, the core idea was probably the same both for Matisse and for Picasso: both of them – as daring modernist innovators – wanted to change perception of art and introduce completely new interpretations of what the human eye sees. Both of them sought to change the trajectory of art’s development, abandoning and even denying old traditions. Fauvism and Analytical cubism could be called the most significant contributions of both painters to development of the new visual art, and thus comparing works of these periods is likely to produce most fruitful results. Comparison of “The Young Sailor II” and “Woman in an Armchair” (1909) illustrates also key differences in approaches of Matisse and Picasso. Firstly, it is use and significance of color: for Matisse and fauvists, color is the key instrument enabling communication of transient moods; whereas Picasso denies color as a meaningful characteristic of reality, minimizing its application in his cubist works. From the standpoint of mere visual perception, even without considering this conceptual difference, everyone will surely notice that color features of the two paintings are very different: the sailor is painted in bold vivid unmixed colors and the woman is nearly monochromatic, with colors being unsaturated. Secondly, it is use and importance of volume in the pictures: here, the situation is opposite. Matisse virtually neglects volume in “The Young Sailor II”, simplifying the boy’s depiction and making it flat: creating volume would require playing with color gradations and creating complex mixed shades, which would go against norms of fauvism. What means here is color and light. On the other hand, Picasso grants much importance to volume; moreover, the entire style is intended to show volume depicting the object from several perspectives at once. Picasso also uses gradations (though he minimizes color use) and plays with lightness of colors in order to communicate volume and show several perspectives simultaneously, unavailable for the eye, but completely within the power of human mind. Thirdly, these works differ radically in the level of abstractiveness of the depicted figures. Matisse singles out his model clearly, while in Picasso’s painting, the woman is almost completely dissolved. This peculiarity also hints at perception of reality of Matisse and Picasso. It was mentioned that Picasso perceives the world to be made of the unitary substance and all the details like textures, colors and material to be meaningless. I would even suppose that it could be the display of typical world perception on the verge of centuries, when a human being became less powerful in conditions of scientific progress and inevitable industrialization. Moreover, this image of a human as a small sand grain would become even more evident in the course of the world wars. However, in Matisse’s painting, we see that the person is singled out from the background clearly; Matisse sees the difference between the objects of reality. Could it be the hint that he perceived the world differently at that time? Notwithstanding these differences, one can single out also a common feature: perception of reality and humans (for these pictures) had changed since Romantic and even impressionist era and these two prominent artists became titans in development of completely new art denying experiences of the previous generations. Works Cited: Prospero. “Matisse at the Met: The effort behind effortlessness”. The Economist, 2012. From: http://www.economist.com/blogs/prospero/2012/12/matisse-met Richardson, John. “Rivalries Between Picasso and Matisse”. Vanity Fair, 2003. From: http://www.vanityfair.com/style/features/2003/02/picasso-matisse200302 Trachtman, Paul. "Matisse & Picasso." Smithsonian 33.11 (2003): 62. Academic Search Complete. Web. From: http://web.b.ebscohost.com.adams.idm.oclc.org/ehost/detail/detail?sid=1a236952-64a9-44d7-8623-1937e0834236%40sessionmgr112&vid=0&hid=118&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZSZzY29wZT1zaXRl#db=a9h&AN=8979934 Wolf, Justin. “Fauvism”. The ArtStory.org Website, 2014. From: http://www.theartstory.org/movement-fauvism.htm Read More