A Visual Analysis Essay

This essay will conduct a visual analysis on the work of Henri Matisse’s The Open Window of 1905 in the fauvism period. This will focus on Matisse’s use of color and how Matisse connects his work to reality. As a 20th century artist in the fauvism period, he uses expressive color to connect to his personal reality. Matisse uses nature as a form of expression to depict what each color can represent in everyday life.
The Open Window was created in 1905 by Henri Matisse. The painting was painted in and based on Collioure, which was a small town on the Mediterranean coast of France . Matisse traveled to Collioure in the summer of 1905 with Derain . The painting becomes a series of “frames within frames”, meaning the wall contains the window;
Fauvism became poplar between a group of artist including Andre Derain, Maurice de Vlaminck and Georges Braque . He began to revolutionize painting with a new emphasis on color . His bright, raw contributions the salons of 1905 and 1906, scandalized the viewers at the time, which he fully intended on . For Matisse, using color, whiteness, and blank canvas are used to represent a space that is naturalistic and reminiscences the kind of light nature provides . While this is being represented, the subject of the work also becomes artificial and unnatural. The landscape being depicted becomes a metaphor for reality in itself. It creates the sense of nature because of the composition of the window with a balcony, but the landscape is completely different from traditional views. He uses colors that are manifestly not the natural color that is actually seen in everyday light . He uses the idea of using complementary colors that creates the illusion of the colors jumping forward on the canvas. Some said the colors used by these fauvist artists were like “sticks of dynamite” . His understanding of how colors work together creates harmonized, effortlessness, and expressive compositions . This creates the confusion of one’s scene of space and measurable depth . He uses this way of painting to create flatness throughout the composition. He wants the viewer to know that the canvas is simply just a canvas. Leaving raw canvas in the composition helps to reiterate that sense of canvas; This makes the viewers think there is an unfinished quality to the