Matisse

French artist Henri Matisse (1869 – 1954) is, along with Pablo Picasso, commonly regarded as pioneer in the revolutionary development of the visual arts in the 20^th century. He was born to generations of weavers and raised in the northern French commune Bohain, famous for its luxury fabrics. The early exposure to textiles strongly shaped his visual language, his sense of colour and patterns. After having studied law, Matisse decided to fully commit to painting at the beginning of the century. His breakthrough in the arts came 1904 with his dynamic works of clashing colours, which had him derided with the epithet “Fauves” (wild beasts). The art movement known as Fauvism of this period determined the following stages of his career, from the abstract paintings in the 1910s to the more decorative interiors of the 1920s, up to the cut-outs art in his last years.