How Matisse Utilized Color to Rebel Against Conventional Norms

Video essayist Evan Puschak of The Nerdwriter looked at how artist Henri Matisse utilized color to rebel against conventional norms, and balked at the visual expectations of subjects. Critics were not kind to this kind of creativity at the time, but Matisse paid no mind.

You can feel Matisse forging his own path. His colors are rebelling against their subjects. the painting is anarchic, fantastical. It’s pulsing with wild energy. …he was labeled a wild beast.

Despite the damnation of his peers, Matisse’s work is the stuff of legend.

I guess that’s the way it goes sometimes you can’t expect the instantaneous acceptance of something radically new. If it was accepted it wouldn’t be radical. With the perspective of a century knowing the directions that Modern Art went in, we now can appreciate the full significance of Matisse’s work. We can be shocked by it without being scandalized. We can marvel at the creative distance that he traveled in just 14 years after which color was never the same.