Large Decoration with Masks

Traditional art regularly featured multi-panel paintings that would be connected together by small hinges. Matisse produced his own version of this with this large artwork, though here the panels were joined together permanently without any intention of the artwork being opened or closed.

There are five separate panels here with the two along the edge being much narrower. You should be able to just about make out the likes of each from the image provided here. What you won't be able to appreciate from the image is the extraordinary size of the overall piece, which stretches to nearly ten metres in width once all of the panels are put together. In height it is around three and half metres tall, meaning that most art galleries would need to devote an entire wall to this piece. As the artist grew older he would become more and more ambitious, experimenting with different mediums for the first time as well as attempting to shock and excite with larger and larger creations. This particular piece was produced using gouache on paper which was then cut and pasted onto white paper. There are two faces within this patterned design, along with flower petal designs in rotating colours.

Face masks were used within modern art to represent actual faces, and so in a way we were moving on from the connection to African art and creating how new meanings. Two tall blue structures stretch across the two opposing sides in order to frame the content a little like corner poles in fencing. The artist then initials the piece in the bottom right hand side, along with "53", which refers to the year of creation. Many will recognise this design immediately as that of Matisse, with many of the hallmarks of his work being found here, including the colour scheme itself as well as the simplistic shapes which pattern across the panels. It is believed that the artist would have his assistants paint paper pages before he then cut out shapes manually himself and then placed these together on large work areas.

He initially just pinned them in place but this became unsuitable for when he would transport these items. As such, he decided eventually to actually glue them in place. There is a child-like style to this piece, similar to something that you might find hanging within a local school. This was the intended approach of many modern artists, which some in the public would find hard to support. Matisse was able to produce brilliant work that was still carefully planned and ordered. His petals had a uniform layout and despite the size and brightness, there is still a calmness here. Each petal arrangement has smaller lines which give the impression of stems which hold each of these flower heads in position.