The Joy of Life: Matisse, Picasso and Cezanne

AbstractMatisse and Picasso met for the first time in the fall of 1906.1 Matisse was then thirty-seven and Picasso twenty-five. The older man was known to academic as well as avant-garde circles. His early painting was in the official manner and had found recognition. In 1896 the French government had purchased his Woman Reading and the Société Nationale had elected him as an Associate Member. But in the same year he discovered Impressionism, and soon after that Van Gogh, Gauguin, and particularly Cézanne. A new horizon opened up for him. He abandoned his early style for pioneer work though this involved loss of financial security. His researches were parallel to the experiments of other young painters, Derain, Vlaminck, Marquet, Camoin, Puy, etc. Around 1903 they cohered into a group with Matisse, the strongest personality among them, the acknowledged leader. The public was introduced to their work (and to Rouault's) in the Salon d'Automne of 1905, where they were nicknamed "the fauves." Picasso, during these years remained relatively unknown except to a small group of intimates (Vollard, Sagot, the Steins, etc.). He had returned to Paris from Barcelona in the spring of 1904. At that time he was working on the large etching, Frugal Repast, one of the last works in the style of his Blue Period. During the year 1905 he painted so many pictures of harlequins that this became known as his Circus Period. Subsequently his color schemes, which still emphasized blue in 1904 and 1905, began to show a predominance of pinks and tans, which caused his work of ca. 1906 to be named his Rose Period. Certain differences can be noted between his Blue Period and the paintings of Circus and Rose Periods. The subjects in both cases are often Bohemians, unbourgeois types who, like Picasso and his friends of these years, lived on the fringe of established society. The beggars and café types of the Blue Period were deformed and distorted with a strong sense of compassion and pity, but in the Rose Period most of Picasso's figures are physically normal human beings, often presented in a dispassionate, classical spirit. Their characteristic trait is youth. They, too, arouse our sympathy; but we feel a friendly and optimistic interest in them, not pity. Now, affirmation of the joyfulness of life and of the exuberance of youth was the Fauve battle cry, although in their case, it was proclaimed in the brightest of color. Nevertheless it seems relevant to point out that Picasso's shift from pessimism to optimism, from beggars and poverty-stricken women, to clowns and youths parallels the joyful spirit of Fauvism. And it is not unreasonable to suggest that Picasso acted under the influence of the atmosphere created at this precise time (1904–1906) by the Fauves. Additional informationNotes on contributorsCarla GottliebMiss Gottlieb is an art historian and lecturer on the staffs of the New School for Social Research, New York and Sarah Lawrence College.