Name of Art With a Metronome on the Piano
Henri Matisse, The Piano Lesson, 1916 (MoMA)
Key points:
- With its austere geometries and structured sense of balance, The Pianoforte Lesson is sometimes seen as Matisse'southward answer to Cubism.
- The composition opposes the sensual, suggested by the sculpture in the left foreground, to subject and order, implied by the geometric epitome of a adult female in the upper right.
- This painting could serve as an apologue on art making, which requires residual between emotional expression and intellectual understanding.
Henri Matisse, The Piano Lesson, 1916, oil on canvas, 245.1 x 212.7 cm (The Museum of Modern Art, New York City)
This highly abstruse painting is important because of its relation to the Cubist grid developed by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque, because of its biographical aspects, and especially due to its thoughtful iconography (symbolic content).
A nostalgic image
This big flat grey painting can be a fleck confusing at first. Let'due south begin with the boy in the lower right. He is the artist's son, Pierre Matisse, who grows up to become a famous art dealer in New York in the 1940s. Information technology'south worth remembering that 1916 was during world war one, the well-nigh devastating conflict Europe had yet known. When Henri painted this epitome, Pierre was actually mobilized. The painter did not know if his son would return. In a mode and so, this is a cornball image, Matisse has painted his son much younger and then he actually was, perhaps recalling happier times. Perhaps happy isn't really the correct give-and-take since Pierre looks pretty miserable. Perchance I'm simply remembering my own childhood piano lessons, but his is a look of worried concentration. A portion of his face even seems to reflect that instrument of the devil, commonly known as a metronome. Pierre sits at the pianoforte well off to the side, trapped in the business firm even as the open French window (a floor-to-ceiling hinged window that opens onto a wrought iron railing) beckons. Finally, what is that very abstract truncated triangle of greenish? Often it is interpreted equally ray of dominicus reaching across the lawn exterior.
Item, Henri Matisse, The Piano Lesson, 1916, oil on canvas, 245.1 x 212.7 cm (The Museum of Modernistic Fine art, New York City)
Detail, Henri Matisse, The Pianoforte Lesson, 1916, oil on sheet, 245.1 ten 212.seven cm (The Museum of Mod Art, New York City)
Yous tin can see why poor little Pierre is so attentive. His music teacher literally hovers higher up him, cold, distant, and aloof. What a wonderful contrast to the other female effigy in the painting.While the instructor represents subject field through her rigid rectilinear class, the small bronze nude at the lower left is virtually all curves. This small sculpture by Matisse is meant to represent the creative spirit while the teacher represents discipline, and like two boxers between rounds, each is in her corner. But expect! Is the teacher really there? Space is then ambiguous that it is hard to tell if at that place is really a distant room for her to inhabit. In fact, there is not and she is not. This is Matisse'southward house in the suburb Issey-les-Moulineaux and this is a wall. The "teacher" is really a painting by Matisse titled, Woman on a High Stool (Germaine Raynal), 1914 (MoMA).
Item, Henri Matisse, The Piano Lesson, 1916, oil on sheet, 245.one x 212.7 cm (The Museum of Modern Art, New York City)
Matisse has transformed the original painting in society that Raynal play the part of the strict instructor, Matisse often created variations on themes that he had already treated. And so, in fact, Matisse has created a painting of a painting and a painting of a sculpture. This suggests that perhaps The Piano Lesson is not only about Pierre and his childhood experiences but more chiefly, the human action of creation itself. Is Pierre actually a stand up in for Henri? Afterwards all, music is a common metaphor for the visual arts.
A visual equivalent of music
Is Matisse then proverb that art is the outcome of both sensual inventiveness (the sculpture) and strict discipline (the painting)–is the metronome that swings between the two, a mediator? And and then what of the odd inclusion of the carved music stand which contains the brand of the piano, "PLEYEL" (which is read backwards equally we encounter it)?
Particular, Henri Matisse, The Pianoforte Lesson, 1916, oil on canvass, 245.1 10 212.vii cm (The Museum of Modern Art, New York City)
As you can see from the later and less abstruse painting Music Lesson, Matisse has removed everything that is non essential from the 1916 canvas. So why and then retain these letters? And why retain the playful swirling wrought iron debate? According to Jack Flam, a leading Matisse scholar and an old teacher of mine (and by the manner, not very strict nor rectilinear), Matisse wants us to read the letters from right to left and then continue to read by the music stand by jumping to the curving iron fence which he believes to exist an abstract expression or visual equivalent of the music (art) that is being produced.
Henri Matisse, The Music Lesson, 1917, oil on canvass, 245.1 x 210.8 (The Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia)
Additional resource:
This painting at MoMA
Audio on this painting from MoMA
Smarthistory images for educational activity and learning:
More than Smarthistory images…
Cite this folio as: Dr. Steven Zucker and Dr. Beth Harris, "A-Level: Henri Matisse, The Piano Lesson," in Smarthistory, July 26, 2017, accessed April 27, 2022, https://smarthistory.org/matisse-piano-lesson-ii/.
Source: https://smarthistory.org/matisse-piano-lesson-2/
0 Response to "Name of Art With a Metronome on the Piano"
Post a Comment