Henri Matisse, the founder of Fauvism, who was famous in various fields, made his works with intense colors and forms. He liberated the genre of painting from classical rules and changed the landscape of painting by displaying the purity of color boldly on the canvas.
In this paper, the harmony of colors, flatness, simplicity, and abstractness that Matisse wanted to express is examined through the characteristics of his paintings by period. As he said, 'Creativity requires courage', Matisse gave courage to his canvas. And, as he said, 'What I dreams of is the art of balance,' he always thought about balance and harmony on the canvas. Furthermore, he expanded the realm of art for many artists from his idea that 'the colors express the painter's inner feelings'. This can be seen by examining his art characteristics of each period.
The main characteristics by period are as follows: in the so-called 'period of imitation' from 1890 to 1905, Matisse omitted the expression of deep space in his paintings and used the same color for the background and object in order to preserve the purity of color tone; in the 'period of Fauvism' of from 1905 to 1907, he simply expressed the human body rather than detailed description, treating the color of the background very lightly; in the 'period of simplicity and decorativeness' from 1908 to 1913, Matisse seemed to be interested in oriental arabesque patterns, with which he produced decorative works and arranged the canvas by drawing extremely decorative and flat paintings while flatly coloring the patterns; in the 'period of experiments' from 1913 to 1917, he attempted some tricky and experimental works, for example, the paintings composed geometrically, abstracted and strictly described, or comprizing shades of black and gray.
In the period of Nice from 1917 to 1930, his works were mainly the indoor paintings centered on the Odalisque series. He introduced the odalisque centered on the female body and the decorative elements of solid and powerful form to give the canvas a sense of connotation and stillness.
In the period of transformative production from 1930 to 1940, Matisse was concerned with how far he could simplify the image of nature. His painting of the days may give a hard and monotonous feeling due to the simplification of colors and forms, but overcome such worries by giving a lively rhythm of unity. Lastly, in the period of colored paper work from 1940 to 1953, Matisse could no longer hold a brush due to health problem, so he started cutting colored papers and created new works using scissors. In those days, he produced a lot of outstanding works with the color, a characteristic of his main paintings.
Inspired by him, many painters began to study various color expressions and methods, which gave great influences to Expressionism, Orphism, Neoplasticism, Abstract Expressionism, Color-field Abstract and Minimalism.
Many modern painters are creating their own techniques with their own various symbols and expression methods through many experiences, experiments, and studies. Music is expressed with the sound, physical education with the body, and art with the emotional eyes. In these various flows of art, Matisse's paintings can be said to have presented many directions for the modern artists.