It’s not supposed to look like a snail. It’s how Matisse felt about snails:
For me nature is always present. It is always when I am in direct accord with my sensations of nature that I feel I have the right to depart from them, the better to render what I feel.
I confess, it took me a while to figure out where the essence of the snail was, and I’m tempted to do my own with that part a bit more pronounced. But the piece does inspire me. I like Matisse’s cutouts better than his paintings because I like the colors and simplicity.
In Masterpiece: A Radical’s Emancipation of Color Richard Cork says of The Snail
The cutout technique enables Matisse to emancipate colors, so that they can sing with even more festive abandon than he had achieved in his most daring oil paintings.
I won’t argue with that. I’m all for colors singing with festive abandon.
Cork says when he was an adolescent he showed his school art teacher a picture of it in a magazine. The teacher said testily,
Oh, sonny, anyone can daub flat paint on pieces of paper, cut them up with scissors and stick them together like this.
That sounds good to me. Festive abandon it is.
April 15, 2014
I am totally lost!
You don’t sense the festive abandon of the colors? Ignore the title. Some modern artists dispense with them because they just confuse the viewer.
I am a big fan of Mark Rothko and his abstract paintings just to establish a base point for my comment, but in unison with Ramana I have to pass on this one. Were I to actually walk by it in a gallery it would indeed catch my attention but not for the same reasons it has caught yours. And the name only tweaks my curiosity.
Perhaps on the other hand, these strange enticements have drawn me into the artist’s trap! 🙂
So why do the Rothko paintings move you so much? I know you’re not alone, but I have never seen one. The web photos don’t come close to doing them justice.
I don’t think I can really offer an answer of any consequence with regard to your question since I am not by any measure an art connoisseur nor a painter. There is just something about some of them that are really pleasing to my eye.
you know.
i never have liked art ‘teachers.’
i do however love matisse!
but i like his paintings more than the cutouts period of his work i think.
though… thinking of him in his weakened illness and still making art however he could… well… what a remarkable joy filled man!
Yes, those cutouts when he was too sick and weak to paint are remarkable. I don’t mind his paintings, but they don’t give me the urge to jump in and experiment for myself. Right now Playing With Color: 50 Graphic Experiments for Exploring Color Design Principles is a book that inspires me even more.
“Festive abandon.” What a neat phrase.
What a wonderful post. I love that piece by Matisse! Festive abandon, it is!
That term also reminds me of Shyla, especially in powder snow!
I love Matisse and I love that painting, but I don’t see anything snail-like about it. I’m all in favour of festive abandon though.
The snail part is the circular arrangement – but it isn’t meant to be a picture of a snail.
I do love Matisse and some of the cut outs are fab. Some of his drawings too. Of his paintings I like the simpler ones best. It is comforting that it took him so long to be able to paint faces well.
Best of all, just blow-me-away-awesome is the swimming pool I think. Sensational.
I also like the simpler works best. And I love the effect Matisse had on modern graphic arts.