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Henri Matisse: Formes d’évolution
by Colette C. Hemingway
Henri Matisse (1869–1954), the French painter renowned for his canvases rich with vibrant colors and pure forms, took up sculpting in clay at the turn of the century....
...For Matisse, clay was the medium with which he worked out the issues that confronted him in his painting-the convincing representation of three-dimensional forms, and the colors, patterns, and textures that altered those forms. With clay, he could "feel" the transformation, and he achieved a number of possibilities. Often, he made a plaster cast from a previous one, cut away at the new hard plaster cast, and then added claypressing, spreading, and smoothing with tools and his fingers to develop a new form. Only later on were Matisse's sculptures cast in bronze. His technique, his working and reworking of shapes, comes to life especially when light hits the surface of these bronze casts.
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Breaking and Integrating Tradition
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