Samantha Sczurek

2D Design

Kathryn Pszotka

Artist Research Profiles (10-12)

10. Henri Matisse

Link: https://www.britannica.com/biography/Henri-Matisse

Henri Matisse, born on Dec. 31, 1869, is often regarded as the most important French painter of

the 20th century. The leader of the Fauvist movement around 1900, Matisse pursued the expressiveness of

color throughout his career. His subjects are largely domestic or figurative, and a distinct Mediterranean

verve is characteristic of his work. Matisse's artistic career was long and varied, covering many different

styles of painting from impressionism to near abstraction. But early on in his career Matisse's use of deep

color, simplified lines and flat patterns categorized him as a Fauvist. He actually became known as the

King of the Fauves, an inappropriate name for this gentlemanly intellectual, for though there was much

passion in his work, it was not wild. He was an awesomely controlled artist and his spirit and mind

always had the upper hand over the "beast" of Fauvism. Matisse's celebration of bright colors reached its

peak in 1917 when he began to spend time on the French Riviera. He spent his time there concentrating

on the colors of his surroundings and completed some of his most exciting paintings during this period.
 Henri Matisse · Le Bonheur de vivre, also called The Joy of Life

11. Claude Monet

Link: https://www.theartstory.org/artist/monet-claude/life-and-legacy/

Claude Monet also known as Oscar-Claude Monet or Claude Oscar Monet (November 14, 1840 –

December 5, 1926) was a founder of French impressionist painting, and the most consistent and prolific

practitioner of the movement's philosophy of expressing one's perceptions before nature, especially as

applied to plein-air landscape painting. The term Impressionism is derived from the title of his painting

Impression, Sunrise. In his mature works, Monet developed his method of producing repeated studies of

the same motif in series, changing canvases with the light or as his interest shifted. These series were

frequently exhibited in groups—for example, his images of haystacks (1890/91) and the Rouen cathedral

(1894). At his home in Giverny, Monet created the water-lily pond that served as inspiration for his last
series of paintings. His popularity soared in the second half of the 20th century, when his works traveled

the world in museum exhibitions that attracted record-breaking crowds and marketed popular commercial

items featuring imagery from his art.

Claude Monet

Impression, Sunrise (1872)

12. Vincent Van Gogh

Link: https://www.britannica.com/biography/Vincent-van-Gogh

Vincent van Gogh was one of the world’s greatest artists, with paintings such as ‘Starry Night’

and ‘Sunflowers,’ though he was unknown until after his death. Vincent van Gogh was a post-

Impressionist painter whose work — notable for its beauty, emotion and color — highly influenced 20th-

century art. He struggled with mental illness and remained poor and virtually unknown throughout his

life. In a decade, he created about 2,100 artworks, including around 860 oil paintings, most of which date

from the last two years of his life. They include landscapes, still lifes, portraits and self-portraits, and are

characterised by bold colours and dramatic, impulsive and expressive brushwork that contributed to the

foundations of modern art. He was not commercially successful, and his suicide at 37 came after years of

mental illness, depression and poverty. Van Gogh suffered from psychotic episodes and delusions and

though he worried about his mental stability, he often neglected his physical health, did not eat properly

and drank heavily. Van Gogh was unsuccessful during his lifetime, and he was considered a madman and

a failure. He became famous after his suicide and exists in the public imagination as a misunderstood

genius, the artist "where discourses on madness and creativity converge”. Van Gogh did not discover

color until September 1883 when he was thirty years old and had been an artist for three years. His ideas

about color were developed through his detailed study of Eugène Delacroix’s color theories. Van Gogh

read about Delacroix’s color theories in Charles Blanc’s Grammaire des arts du dessin: architecture,

sculpture, peinture, “which explained the action of complementary colors – colors opposite each other in

the color wheel”

Vincent van Gogh, Irises, 1889