*57
Notes Matisse received 17 in life drawing, 3 in perspective, in modelling, o in architecture, and 13 in history (see Note 23 above for the exact categories) for a total of 37 out of a possible 100. With this score he finished the concours in forty-second place (eighty-six pupils were accepted to the ficole at that time). 25 Moreau also introduced his students to the masters of the Louvre. Matisse later (1943) recalled the bene-
4
that this had on his early experience, since shielded him from the prevailing state of mind at the ficole, which was centred on producing Salon entries and Prix-de-Rome candidates: 'It was almost a revolutionary attitude on Moreau's part to send us
ficial effect it
Louvre at a time when official art, doomed to the vilest pastiches, and living art, given over to plein-air painting, seemed to have joined forces to keep us away.' (Diehl, p. 11). 26 Cited in Jean Guichard-Meili, Matisse, off to the
New
York, 1967, p. 36. 27 Cited in Guichard-Meili, op. cit. p. 25. 28 For discussion and reproduction of some of these works, see Barr, pp. 33, 293. 29 The exhibition opened on 25 April 1896. On 9 June 1896 Matisse wrote to his cousin Lancelle saying that the exhibition had not given him only 'platonic
he had sold two paintings, one to the State, which had also commissioned two more copies: one of a Chardin for 1,000 francs, another of an Annibale Caracci for 1,200 francs. Matisse added, 'You see, my dear friend, that there is some painting which brings returns'. (Letter to Lancelle), Arts, satisfactions', since
of Early Matisse*, Art Journal, xxvi, 1, Fall, 1966, pp. 2-8. 45 Trapp, Art Journal, pp. 6-8. 46 Madsen, op. cit. pp. 15-16. 47 Meyer Schapiro, 'Matisse and Impressionism', Androcles,
1,
1,
February 1932,
p. 23.
Guenne: Interview with Matisse (Text
7, below). Impressionists of course also relied on instinct, as did Matisse. It is likely that Matisse experienced his first physical boldness with a canvas and free instinctive rendering of the first impression during his Impressionistic phase. Monet, for example, had written to Sargent: 'Impressionism simply means the sensation of the moment. All great painters were more or less impressionists. It is really a question of instinct.' (Evan Charteris, John Sargent, New York, 1927, p. 129.) Monet also had stressed self-expression of a sort, saying that he 'has simply tried to be himself and not another'. (E. G. Holt, From the Classicists to the Documentary History of Art and Impressionists:
48 49
The
A
Architecture,
Matisse
like
New Monet
York, 1966, p. 381.) Although tried to preserve a certain naivety
it was in order to arrive at fresh not in order to submerge objects into the optical effect. Monet emphasized the recording of pure optical sensation, almost the opposite of what Matisse was after in 1908. See for example Lilla Cabot Perry, 'Reminiscences of Claude Monet from 1889 to
toward experience, 'signs' for objects,
1909',
The American Magazine of Art, xvin, March
1927, p. 120. 50 Barr, p. 38.
August 1952, p. 1. For a discussion of landscape etudes and esquisses, see Boime, op. cit., Note 23, above, p. 150 ff. For Matisse's own description of this experience, 31
It should also be remembered that Matisse visited 51 Renoir at Cagnes several times during 19 17-18. 52 Schapiro, art. cit., p. 29. 53 See Kurt Badt, The Art of Cizanne, Berkeley and
See Escholier, 1937, pp. 77-8. 32 Goupil's 1877 treatise (p.
Los Angeles, 1965, pp. 268-75, for a discussion of Cezanne and Symbolism. Some of Badt's comments
13
30
163),
for example,
the decorative arts, including the study of ornamental composition and arabesques with scrolls, and refers to his own Manuel general de Vornement dicoratif (Paris, 1862). 33 Diehl, p. 7. 34 'Matisse Speaks' (Text 39, below). briefly discusses
Henry Havard, La decoration, 2nd ed., Paris, 1892?. Havard is advertised on the title-page as 1 'Inspecteur general des Beaux-Arts and the book was 35
published under the patronage of *V administration des Beaux-Arts couronne par VInstitut (Prix Bordin) et honori des souscriptions du Ministere d' Instruction Publique, de la Ville de Paris, des Chambres du Commerce de Paris'. I should like to thank Mr John Neff for calling this
book
to
my attention.
Havard, op. cit. p. 4. Havard, op. cit. p. 7. Havard, op. cit. p. 8. Havard, op. cit. p. 15. 40 Havard, op. cit. p. 19. 41 Havard, op. cit. p. 14. 42 Havard, op. cit. p. 20. 43 S. Tschudi Madsen, Art Nouveau, New YorkToronto, 1967, p. 15. 44 Frank Anderson Trapp, 'Art Nouveau Aspects 36 37 38 39
also apply to Matisse, such as (p. 270): 'Cezanne "manufactured" nothing with his mind, he invented
nothing, he painted merely what he perceived. But he perceived in an entirely individualistic way Cezanne's formula was the medium of expression for the symbolic exposition of the real world as a sign ... of the unshakeable objectiveness and unshakeable "existing together" of objects. It emerged in his art in various forms, without however changing at the core. What was novel about it was that it turned all external appearances of real things into a symbol of being, "which is eternal".' 54 The Matisse is reproduced in Guichard-Meili, op. cit., Note 26, above, p. 45, the Cezanne, in Meyer Schapiro, Paul Cezanne, New York, 1952, p. 63. 55 The Matisse is reproduced in Barr, p. 311; the Cezanne in Schapiro, Paul Cizanne, p. 51. 56 Matisse was also aware of the painting's direct effect upon his early career. Speaking of the purchase of his Cezanne Trois baigneuses, to Gaston Diehl ('Avec Matisse le classique', Comoedia, no. 102, 12 June 1943, p. 1) he said: 'I remember that everything there had its place, that the hands, the trees counted in the same way as the sky. I had recognized in [Cezanne] this stability in the form, this song of the .
.
.