What Kind of Art Did Henri Matisse Paint?

Henri Matisse started as a student of the Flemish style (fifteenth through seventeenth centuries, or the Renaissance and Baroque periods in art history) and learned oil painting predominately in this traditional foundation. His adeptness and loyalty to Classical art extended well into his Modern works.

Henri Matisse matured into a celebrated painter under the influence of Impressionism (Russell) and post-Impressionism (Vincent van Gogh), where he mastered color theory, Pointillism (painting with colored dots) and began developing his unique style, Fauvism.

The subjects of Matisse's paintings include portraits, landscapes, architecture (especially rooms, windows and doorways) and still art. Of these subjects, Matisse’s most popular paintings are still art, women’s portraits and odalisks (paintings of oriental chamber maids in the reclining fashion).

Henri Matisse founded Fauvism (by means of the revolutionary artistic group called Fauves), which focused on--and excelled at--using colors to represent feeling rather than dwelling on a realistic representation of the subject's original coloring in nature. For example, a woman's face could be purple and blue for macabre sadness, rather than the normal peach or brown flesh tones. The leaves on a plant could be red and its flowers green; wallpaper could be exaggerated in magenta rather than beige.

Matisse painted with romantic and bold colors that expressed transient feeling and sentiments rather than portraying a traditional, realistic "photograph" of the subject. His paintings are of simple, almost comic construction without too much unnecessary detail, giving them a slightly paper cut-out abstract look, with the focus being on color.