"Matisse created brilliantly colored canvases structured by color applied in a variety of brushwork, ranging from thick impasto [thick paint] to flat areas of purepigment, sometimes accompanied by a sinuous,arabesque-like line. [This was] the first of theavant-garde movements (1905–7), named "Fauvism" by a contemporary art critic, referring to its use of arbitrary combinations of bright colors and energetic brushwork to structure the composition".[5]
Although he was initially called aFauve (wild beast), he painted many traditional themes. He painted from life, and his work includes manyportraits and other figurative subjects.[6]His mastery of the expressive language of form and color, in work spanning over a half-century, won him recognition as a leading figure inmodern art.[5]
↑Wattenmaker, Richard J.; Distel, Anne, et al. 1993.Great French paintings from the Barnes Foundation. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. p272ISBN0-679-40963-7
