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Lot Essay
Sold with a photo-certificate from Wanda de Gubriant dated Paris 20 December 1983.
Executed in Paris in the spring of 1904, Intrieur Quai St Michel was painted just before Matisse's trip to St. Tropez of that year and on the very threshold of his departure into the wild colouration of his Fauvist period. Matisse has painted the interior of his home with bold sweeping brushtrokes that have quickly captured the essence of this domestic scene, and highlighted it with a few darting flashes of brilliant colour. Intrieur Quai St Michel is a work that is pregnant with anticipation for the developments of Matisse's art during the summer.
Matisse had first explored the use of vibrant clashing colour in his work in 1902 and 1903 but, feeling that he had not fully assimilated the lessons of Czanne, returned to a softer and more muted palette in order to fully appreciate the great Post-Impressionist's mastery of form. By the spring of 1904 Matisse had fully absorbed Czanne and as Intrieur Quai St Michel clearly shows, all the elements of his mature work were in place save the wild vibrant colours that, it seems, only the light of the South of France could inspire in him.
Depicted from a strongly perspectival viewpoint that emphasises the depth of the room as it leads to the outside, Intrieur Quai St Michel shows Matisse exploring the divide between interior and exterior space that would so distinguish his famous balcony paintings in Collioure one year later.
Swift confident brushstrokes dance and play alongside one another and one can see Matisse delighting in the vibrant patterning of the pink and green wall paper as well as his own mastery of technique as he deftly depicts a vase of flowers standing on the upright bureau at the centre of the composition.
Executed in Paris in the spring of 1904, Intrieur Quai St Michel was painted just before Matisse's trip to St. Tropez of that year and on the very threshold of his departure into the wild colouration of his Fauvist period. Matisse has painted the interior of his home with bold sweeping brushtrokes that have quickly captured the essence of this domestic scene, and highlighted it with a few darting flashes of brilliant colour. Intrieur Quai St Michel is a work that is pregnant with anticipation for the developments of Matisse's art during the summer.
Matisse had first explored the use of vibrant clashing colour in his work in 1902 and 1903 but, feeling that he had not fully assimilated the lessons of Czanne, returned to a softer and more muted palette in order to fully appreciate the great Post-Impressionist's mastery of form. By the spring of 1904 Matisse had fully absorbed Czanne and as Intrieur Quai St Michel clearly shows, all the elements of his mature work were in place save the wild vibrant colours that, it seems, only the light of the South of France could inspire in him.
Depicted from a strongly perspectival viewpoint that emphasises the depth of the room as it leads to the outside, Intrieur Quai St Michel shows Matisse exploring the divide between interior and exterior space that would so distinguish his famous balcony paintings in Collioure one year later.
Swift confident brushstrokes dance and play alongside one another and one can see Matisse delighting in the vibrant patterning of the pink and green wall paper as well as his own mastery of technique as he deftly depicts a vase of flowers standing on the upright bureau at the centre of the composition.