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Matisse: Radical Invention, 1913-1917 (Art Institute of Chicago)

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This book is the catalogue for the current exhibition at the Art Institute of Chicago, which will then travel to Moma in NYC. It is the first study to have exclusively focused on a crucial timespan in Matisse's career, the years from 1913 to 1917, when the artist experimented with all sorts of styles, techniques and materials, culminating in a major body of works verging on abstraction, such as the Morrocans, French Window at Collioures or Bathers by a River. The aim of the book is to show how and why Matisse came up with such revolutionary works, the influences he was subjected to (from other artists, such as Cézanne or the Cubists, but also from outside events, namely WWI) and how these works relate to each other (especially the back and forth movement of strict or lushful colors, the artist alternately producing ascetic works almost entirely black and gray and others richly colored).

Richly documented (here I would like to point out, on pages 32-37, a very interesting glossary of technical terms that helps the reader delve into Matisse's craft and discover some of his secrets), full of marvelous illustrations and, most of all, replete with magnified details of the works which emphasize Matisse's working process (what he would later call, in a 1952 interview with Tériade, the "methods of modern construction"), this is a high-quality publication, a groundbreaking study which I strongly recommend to anyone interested in the origins and the making of modern art.

This book is full of analysis of H.M.'s work. So ,many painters have dismissed Matisse as a light weight. In the "Bathers" ,the "Moroccans" especially he raises to a painter who has created a painting of great depth. There are xrays of all the major paintings in the exhibit.Plus,the book has extensive reproductions of most of the sketches and studies of pieces in the show. The authors have done a splendid job of telling us the methods and techniques of Matisse. How he used a scraper to re-work a painting for example. Many of the artworks have been re-done many times but, Henri has always in the final result has made work that is fresh. I remember a lecture in 1952 that Dan Catton Rich made about Matisse he said that his great work was in the sculptural reliefs he made of backs in a series.The paintings he thought superficial.I don't think he studied the "Bathers" in any depth.The reproduction although very good could have been larger ,they were limited by the graphic designers organization of type and photos.Missing for me is a good reproduction of the "Moroccan Cafe" . The book fails to recognize the importance of this painting.Its importance lies in its elimination of the angle that is heavily cubist.The "cafe" is in the oriental model,The "Blue Window" of MOMA is also reliant on balls of color. In an old Art News Annual there is an article on Miro and how he made paintings after these works for color organization, that the Abstract Expressionist were also inspired by.The last artist in A. E. living in NYC are more likely to love this show than Chicago artists.Golub was short-sighted he didn't see the importance of Matisse's sculptural figuration.Ethical concerns aren't laid aside by H.M. as brought out by other books on him.Rothko & Motherwell were especially aware of this.This show sets the record straight on Matisse's contribution to international art The book has breadth and is full of important information on the period covered in this book. You may want to get this book on Kindle or an Ipad. Unless you read it on some kind of support your hands will get tired. The book weighs three pounds.The book will become valuable; it brings fresh scholarship to a painter that has been over-shadowed by Picasso.For public and artist anyone who loves Matisse's work. This book is a must. If you miss the show you can gain as much out of the book as the exhibit.I waited and bought my book from Amazon ,my membership to AIC would have been only 20 % of the price. 37% plus one day free shipping is a good deal.

Radical Re-Invention of the Art Exhibition Catalog!
A catalog as beautifully and thoughtfully designed as the exhibition itself.

The reproduction quality is excellent, each painting and drawing I desired a memory of from the exhibition is reproduced truthfully - on well
designed pages that turn from white to slightly off white to gray. This book is beautifully printed IN ITALY! It is not one of those budget museum Asian print jobs that gets shipped off to Korea or China with color separations done from bad transparencies without any color corrections and sits on a shelf at the end of the exhibition with reproductions that are nothing but a dark shadow of the original art - this is a beautifully designed and extremely well-printed volume. Thank you AIC, MOMA & Yale for designing and printing a book as memorable as the exhibition. I can now look forward to the time I will have to learn more via the text set along with remarkable visuals. This is also a first edition hardback copy at a fantastic price for a book too heavy to lug home on the plane if you are traveling to see the exhibition.

Unless you are surprised that Russia refused to be apart of this landmark exhibit, every other masterpiece was included in Chicago. This is a wonderful book that goes beyond boring history and reproductions. They go into enough depth for any artist to learn from his technique but also gives a history that builds to an understanding of this exhibit which is the most interesting part of Matisse's life. This book does include the russian examples that were missing in Chicago. That being said buy this book and boycott Russia.

Abstract Art is a well-established medium in the visual arts, but there are many viewers who, while pondering a great work of art, still have difficulty in understanding the concept of the abstract presentation. For those viewers, the exhibition "Matisse: Radical Invention 1913-1917" is THE primer for understanding this difficult, intricate but wholly satisfactory form of visual expression.

The exhibit was mounted in 2010 jointly by the Art Institute of Chicago and the Museum of Modern Art in New York. That exhibit has now closed, but fortunately, the two museums put together a catalogue that should be in the library of every lover of art.

The exhibit and the catalogue focus on a specific time period, 1913-1917, in the evolution of Matisse's art. But in fact the colorful reproductions and the highly articulate essays in the catalogue contribute a lot to the understanding of abstract art, from Picasso and Matisse to Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning and beyond.

Abstract art involves a number of issues, including color, composition, design, line, form and perspective. Some abstract artists take apart their subjects and then reconstruct them on canvas or as sculpture into their own interpretation of the meaning of the subject. Other artist artists strip their subjects down to their very basic components, leaving the viewer with just a suggestion of the subject, encouraging the viewer to interpret the subject as he or she sees fit. The expressionists let their emotions and their thoughts guide them as they try to paint what they see.

Abstract art can be traced back into the 19th century (Turner, Cezanne and Whistler), but the two most important founders of the genre were Matisse and Picasso. The Matisse work presented in the catalogue of the recent exhibit in New York and Chicago zeroes in like a laser beam on a 5-year period early in Matisse's career.

Consider Matisse's View of Notre Dame, an oil on canvas painting measuring nearly three by five feet. Matisse painted it in 1914, but he didn't exhibit until 1949 when critics dismissed the work as an "unfinished sketch to which Matisse had unaccountably signed his name."

In fact, View of Notre Dame is an exquisite painting, now considered one of Matisse's most important works, and the catalogue devotes four full pages to a discussion of how the painting evolved.

Matisse had a studio at the quai Saint Michelle that gave him a view of Notre Dame Cathedral, and he painted that view numerous times, some included in the catalogue's analysis. But in the painting under discussion here, Matisse had refined the view down to a vague shape that resembled the twin towers of the cathedral, a few black lines that outlined the streets and the Seine River, and a single green mass that starkly represents the trees along the riverbank. The dominant color is a blue wash obscures the details even further.

Like most works in this catalogue, the study of the View of Notre Dame included an infrared examination of the work to see how Matisse developed such a masterpiece. The infrared examination shows us "the extent to which the linear scaffolding was drawn and redrawn, rubbed and scarped back and all but erased, yet still forms the sedimented memory of the work's creation."

Far from being an unfinished sketch, the overall composition has captured the essence of the venerable cathedral that has symbolized Parisian culture for centuries.

The catalogue considers dozens of works by Matisse in a similar manner, including the Art Institute's masterpiece, Bathers by a River. Each discussion adds to the comprehension of not only Matisse's early work but the overall meaning of abstract art in general. We are, literally, taught how to appreciate the techniques of abstract art and how the great abstract painters developed their masterpieces. The experience of reading and considering this catalogue is, in a word, enlightening.

One of the most important new studies of Matisse's work to appear in the last 10 years. Definitely a must purchase

I purchased this book to familiarize myself with Matisse's work from this period, which is really his only work I like. Didn't change my view of him much--he is still an artist I think is over-rated. The book's reproductions are fair, but many are smallish with several/page so images can be compared. Not a coffee-table book with dazzling pictures. Haven't read the text.