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Game of Checkers
Artist Henri Matisse
Henri Matisse, from 1869 – 1954, near Le Cateau-Cambrésis, Northern France.
The Painter’s Family
1911 playing a game of checkers.
Pianist and Checker Players,
painting made in 1924.
- From around 1897, artist Henri Matisse’s
roots were shaded with the color
of Impressionism because he began to focus
on the element of color in his paintings.
- In 1908 Henri Matisse wrote in ‘Notes
d’un peintre’: “I
dream of an art of balance, purity and
calm, without troubling or depressing
themes, that will offer...a soothing
influence.”
- Further views on the freedom of his artistic expression were stated in the following quotes:
"I have always
tried to hide my efforts and wished my works
to have the light joyousness of springtime,
which never lets anyone suspect the labors
it has cost me."
"In modern art, it is undoubtedly to Cézanne that I owe the most."
"A colorist makes his presence known even in a single charcoal drawing."
"The function of the artist is not to translate an observation but to express the shock of the object on his nature; the shock, with the original reaction."
- ‘The Painter’s
Family’ made in 1911, represented
the genre scene of a Matisse’s
family at home where the artist painted
his wife, Amélie, seated on the
sofa in the background of the setting
focused on her own activity, while his
sons, Jean and Pierre were involved in
a game of checkers in the middle of the
room; his daughter, Marguerite, appeared
to be looking askance towards the boys
at the checkerboard.
- The monumental decorative piece clearly
represented checkers artist Henri Matisse’s
love of patterns within patterns and daring,
bold colors painted in broad brushstrokes
to convey the natural checkers motif of
a normal, daily household pleasure, the
rear wall and the sofas did not delineate
the scene because the wall existed only
as part of a continuum of color wherein
the patterned rug and sofas, the flowered
wallpaper and speckled fireplace, the freshly
filled vases, the sculpture of Matisse's ‘The
Serf’, the red costumes of the brothers,
the yellow and black dresses all dance,
rhyme and sing as a single musical abstract
composition.
- ‘Pianist and Checker Players’ clearly depicted his style of this period as it showed areas of bright primary colors and rhythmic, two dimensional subjects.
- Artist Henri Matisse’s theme represented
a typical family evening activity of music
and a game of checkers being enjoyed in
a relaxed atmosphere of the family parlor.
National Gallery of Art background on the checkers painting:
“Through the
1920s, Matisse stayed in Nice from late fall
to early spring of each year, while his wife
and family remained in Issy-les-Moulineaux
outside Paris. Pianist and Checker Players
is set in Matisse's Nice apartment and shows
the artist's favorite model, Henriette Darricarère
and her two brothers. The painting can be seen
as a surrogate family portrait, with Henriette
standing in for Matisse's daughter, and the
two boys representing his sons...This is distinctly
Matisse's world: near the empty armchair at
the center of the painting where the artist
might sit, his violins hang from the armoire
and his drawings and paintings are tacked to
the wall. The possible psychological complexities
of the painting are more than matched by those
of its pictorial organization. In few paintings
does Matisse manage to control such an extraordinary
proliferation of pattern and ornamentation.
To this decorative profusion Matisse adds an
equivalent abundance of perspective viewpoints:
piano, chairs, floor, and bureau are each pictured
from different angles. Despite the wealth of
pictorial elements, a curious, calm order of
structured harmony prevails. Pianist
and Checker Players is
suffused with a warm glow made up of complementary
tones of yellow and red.”
- Henri Matisse’s modernist,
decorative creations declared an independence
from history, biography and emotion in
their free expression and depicted a raw
and intense chromatic schema that was very
reminiscent of the abstract and symbolist
art of Paul Gauguin but at the same time,
the broad strokes and color patterns within
a genre scene depicted the influence of
Cézanne.
- The people in his paintings were simply created free to pursue their endeavors in whatever fashion they chose; he used the checkers image in numerous paintings as part of his overall decorative motif.
Odalisque with checkerboard and armchair. |
Harmony in yellow with checkerboard. |
Dancer in a chair on a checkerboard.
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