Poll #617361 Still or Stijl?
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 10
The Dance (Hermitage version) is . . .
"Maître Matisse, if I understand him (which, with my imperfect facility with French and my slighter knowledge of art, I am afraid I didn’t quite), stands primarily for the solid existence of things. He paints weight, volume, roundness, color and all the intrinsic physical attributes of the thing itself, and then imbues the whole with sentiment. Oh, yes, his paintings do have life! One can’t deny that. They are not merely models posed against a background, like thousands of canvases in the Salons, they are human beings with souls. You turn from his pictures, which have so shockingly defied you, and you demand of other artists at least as much vitality and originality -- and you don’t find it! He paints with emotion, and inspires you with it. But, alas! When he paints his wife with a broad stripe of green down her nose, though it startlingly suggests her, it is his punishment to have made her appear so to you always. He teaches you to see her in a strange and terrible aspect. He has taught you her body. But, fearful as it is, it is alive -- awfully alive!" [Gelett Burgess, "The Wild Men of Paris" (Architectural Record, May 1910)]
4 (40.0%)--[]--
"With color one obtains an energy that seems to stem from witchcraft." [Matisse]