Monet
Matisse
OPPOSITE LEFT:
Matisse, Girl By A
Window.
OPPOSITE RIGHT:
Monet.
ABOVE: Renoir, Figures
On The Beach
CENTER: CLAUDE
MONET, Self Portrait.
Private Collection
BOTTOM: HENRI
MATISSE, Self Portrait.
Staten Museum For
Kunst, Copenhagen
Portraits not included
in exhibit.
Claude Monet was a founder of French
Impressionist painting and the most prolific
practitioner of the movement. In fact, the
very term "Impressionist" comes from
the title of his painting "Impression."
Monet and other like-minded artists were
consistently rejected from the conservative
Académie des Beaux-Arts' annual exhibition
at the Salon de Paris. These artists
banded together to exhibit their works
independently, and the Impressionists
were formed.
Monet often painted the same scene
many times, driven by his commitment to
document the French countryside as the
light or seasons changed. While living in
Giverny, just outside of Paris, he purchased
property and began painting landscapes that
included the lily ponds for which he would
later become so famous.
Henri Matisse was a French artist known
for his bold use of color. He is primarily
known as a painter, but was also an
accomplished draughtsman, printmaker and
sculptor. Matisse, along with Pablo Pacasso
and Marcel Dunchamp, is regarded as one
of the three artists who revolutionized the
field with the development of the plastic
arts. The plastic arts were responsible
for significant developments in sculpture
and painting. Although initially labelled a
Fauve for his expressive use of color with
no regard for the subject's natural color,
Matisse was known as an upholder of
classical tradition in French painting by the
1920s and is to this day hailed as a leading
figure in modern art.
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