Henri Matisse was a very famous artist from France.
Matisse expressed emotions through color, choosing to use vibrant and inner hues rather than depicting colors exactly as they appear in reality.
People initially criticized Matisse’s works where he painted faces in shades of blue and red, likening them to beasts. However, as time passed, people became captivated by his art, and Matisse’s works garnered much love and appreciation. Receiving acclaim for his Fauvist paintings, Matisse later fell ill in his old age. Unable to paint any longer, he embarked on a new artistic journey. He started creating artworks using a technique called “cut-outs.”
In this process, he painted sheets of paper with beautiful colors, cut and tore the paper into shapes, and then assembled these cutouts into intricate compositions.
Matisse referred to his cutout works as “drawing with scissors.” These cutouts represented his passion and innovative spirit. This week, in art lesson, we talked about Matisse’s cut-out works and we followed his technique the way he did. Year 1-2 kids created their beautiful cut-out shapes with some patterns I had offered. Their patterns are very colorful and show how creative they are. In the next class, we will learn about Matisse’s artwork called “Icarus.”
