Object Record
Images
Metadata
Artist |
Matisse, Henri |
Title |
Icarus, plate VIII of the illustrated book "Jazz" |
Date |
1947 |
Medium |
stencil print on Arches |
Place of Origin |
France |
Culture |
French |
School |
Fauvism/Modernism |
Object ID |
1977.165 |
Collection |
Modern Art (1900-1970) |
Object Name |
|
Credit line |
Gift of Mr. Robert F. Dierdorff |
Didactic Information |
Henri Matisse was the leader of the fauvists or "wild beasts," a group of French painters who developed a radical new style full of color and bold distortions. This movement was short-lived, but Matisse remained a Fauve in principle for the rest of his life. Born in Le Cateau, France, his artwork influenced German art, which led to expressionist art, also a short-lived movement. Matisse once remarked, "What I dream of is an art that can be for any intellectual worker, for the businessman or the writer, a means of soothing the soul, something like a comfortable armchair in which one can rest from physical fatigue." Icarus, a color lithography, is Matisse's fantasy of the tragic disaster in which the doomed Icarus falls through a night sky to his death. |