The Use Of Color in Henri Matisse’s Paintings

One of Matisse’s most distinguishing features are bold primary colors that tend to stand out on the canvas. The Fauves added this characteristic to their paintings because of the French pessimistic point of view that France was losing its taste for life and culture, with modern times becoming drab and dull. Their influence spread to the French people, who felt that they rightfully brought back some of France’s liveliness. This can be seen in one of Matisse’s most famous works, Femme au Chapeau.

In this painting, he depicts his wife in a wide array of colors, showing her femininity and delicacy with curvature, along with shadows and highlights throughout the painting. She looks over her shoulder in an indirect way onto the onlooker, with wide, sad eyes and a frowning mouth. His brushstrokes seem to be dry and free while still keeping the entire of spectrum of color in her face.

The violent contrasts in color are a display of the Fauvist love for energy and bold, primary colors that took over their paintings.

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The background is another bold display of these colors, as they messily overlap one another. However, the figure herself is very defined, with several black lines along her hat, clothes, and face that allow her to stand out in the mesh of color. Her face alone holds many different colors, which shows off Matisse’s skills in shadowing her facial features, along with clothes and hat. The depth shown in her clothes and hat clearly defines her coat and hat curvatures, even bringing a shadow against her face, which is caused by her overcropping hat.

While the detail in her facial features and clothing is not apparent, each feature is precisely defined. Matisse manages to make her ears orange as well, which in any other painting would have looked quite strange, but in his looks completely natural due to the variety of colors. Her form is very curved, bringing about a feeling of feminism and delicacy, including her wide eyes and curved shoulders and face.

Shortly after creating La Femme au chapeau, in 1908 Matisse painted La Fille aux yeux verts, or The Girl with the Green Eyes. In this painting, Matisse does not use a variety of colors in her face, but keeps the face a consistent color throughout, along with the background and her clothing. This painting, along with La Femme au chapeau, were greatly influenced by Matisse’s summers along the southwestern coast of France, where color and liveliness was plentiful and influential.

The Girl with the Green Eyes heavily differentiates from Matisse’s other works due to her clothing, where she was completely clothed. In Matisse’s later paintings, he paints nudes with exaggerated features, whereas here he nearly under exaggerates the woman’s features. The bold colors are still present and messily spread, yet they are more distinct and less chaotic. While the onlooker can still see the woman’s features through shadow and highlight, they are not distinguished by different colors, but rather by different shades of the same color. Matisse keeps some of his black outline in this painting as well in order to create a sense of organization in the midst of color. Her long neck and smaller head can be interpreted as a sign of beauty, although it is hidden by her clothing. This greatly shows the femininity of southern French women, with bright colors in front of a unique colorblocked background. During this time period, Matisse used his daughter, an illegitimate child from Matisse’s time in Paris, as a model.