Since the Impressionist period, color began to stand out in art history. The painter expresses his inner emotion in colors through painting. The colors expressing the artist's personality or unique emotion appear autonomous and abstract as they deviate from the representational form. These emotions are expressed in various ways by eliciting and transforming the unconscious emotions through the objects already obtained from the experience and the recognized objects. Swiss psychologist Carl Gustav Jung said, "Color has generally been created and used as a sign or a sign for the distinction and communication of objects, with a more emphasized role than language when communicating or arguing. Color has a symbolic meaning and has been used as an important means of expression in artists' works.
In the 20th century, various styles of painting appeared with the interpretation of new perspectives on colors starting from impressionism. This was based on social change, scientific development, and economic development. Modern paintings are free and diverse compared to the past in all aspects of expression, tools, materials and composition. Free from realistic forms and colors. This expression was made possible by the 20th century abstract art. French painter Henri Matisse was a turning point in the development of abstract art.
The interest in the colors of the beast painters, including Matisse, dates back to Delacroix. Delacroix valued the expression of emotions by color rather than lines, and suggested the possibility of subjective use of color. Later impressionist painters such as Manet and Pizarro tried to convey the impression of nature through color. Later Impressionist artists studied it in a more theoretical, scientific, and systematic way. We tried to express subjective emotions through the juxtaposition of Seurat's color juxtaposition, Cezanne's color superposition, Gauguin's wide color expression, and Gogh's passionate color expression.
These artists' interest in colors leads to Matisse. The color analysis of the Matisse painting proceeds with the color point-color line-color plane-color plane abstraction, which directs the color either as a modeling element itself or as an abstract form aesthetic.
Born at the end of the 20th century, Matisse was inspired and influenced by various techniques and formative arts of original genius painters. He learned paintings by Turner, Manet, Monet, Signac, Gogh, Gauguin, and Cezanne, and made his own color world through experimental experience. Matisse used color not as a description of nature but as a means of expressing his feelings. In addition to the autonomy of colors, which is different from the traditional methods and techniques, the authors presented different interpretations of colors. The abstraction of color was completed by studying the expressive colors of primary colors and the simplicity of decoration and form. This is an opportunity to prepare a turning point of modern painting.
In this paper, I will study the color expression of Matisse painting which enabled abstract expression in color and led to true color release. Before analyzing the colors of Matisse paintings, Chapter II examines the backgrounds of the post-Impressionist paintings that influenced Matisse and their painting styles, and Chapter III examines the color theories that influenced the late Impressionists. In addition, this study examines the influences of Goose's color and color line, Gauguin's color and color plane, and Cezanne's color, which influenced Matisse's painting and post-impressionist painting. In chapter V, I will examine the formation process of Matisse painting and the color characteristics of his paintings, and analyze the characteristics of colors that are classified into expressive colors, decorative colors, and compositional colors through Matisse's works.
Lastly, in Chapter VI, we examine how Matisse's paintings influenced German expressionism, orphism, American abstract expressionism and colorfield abstraction, neo-plasticism and explored the possibilities of forming the basis of Western modern painting.
Matisse came up with a new interpretation of color throughout his life. "The simpler the color, the richer the abstraction becomes, and the abstraction makes us comfortable, presenting the symbols and allusions as the warmth of color." He did not give up his work until the end of his arthritis period, when he couldn't lift his brush.