Matisse's Artistic Courage
Perspectives from The Artist's Road
In our blog about the working methods of Henri Matisse as he painted The Romanian Blouse in 1940, we described his willingness to revise and redesign the same subject over and over until it reached what was, for him, a kind of perfection. He unfailingly believed in his vision and possessed a rare kind of genius. He knew to follow his own star in all things artistic. Many European artists of the day were inspired by, or directly lifted ideas from him, most notably, his friend Pablo Picasso.
We received so many requests to see the other iterations of La Blouse Roumaine, or The Romanian Blouse, that we are showing them here. These were documented by Matisse in photographs as he worked so that he could refer to them for comparison to the ongoing revisions. Over the course of six months, his development of this composition generated at least fifteen versions! In our opinions, any one of those versions was a beautiful work. Matisse displayed the finished painting along with p…
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to The Artist's Road to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.