Henry Matisse
This video is about an artist named Henry Matisse. In his later years he was diagnosed with bowel
cancer. The nurse-Jack Marie, who took care of him later became a nun and lived right down from his
house. There was no chapel near her home, so Henry decided to have one built just for her to thank her
for her care while he was recovering. Matisse refers to the chapel as the “crowning achievement of his
career”. In the church Matisse drew many figures depicting the agony of Christ which displays many
images of suffering. The surprising part about this is that he never incorporated such images in his own
art. Directly on the opposite side of those paintings is a window beautifully depicting “the tree of life”.
It’s almost as if the window is going against the images on the other side and saying “it doesn’t have to
be all pain and suffering”. In the end Henry Matisse was remembered for his use of bold colors and
simplicity.
Wassily Kandinsky
In this video we took a closer look at a painting called “composition VII” by Wassily Kandinsky in 1913.
The painting is currently in the State Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow. He used lots of aspect of abstract art.
The painting can be described as synesthetic. He was found with a famous composer named Arnold
Shinder. By listening to shindig’s music and looking at the painting we are able to understand the
painting a lot more. In my opinion listening to the music and observing the painting at the same time
feels unstructured and un harmonious. The different shapes, lines and objects in the painting seem to
clash with the soft sounds and harmonies on the music. With the bright colors, it almost seems as if
Kandinsky wanted to paint about the “conflict of the forms themselves” because of the lack of
references to actual objects and representation. If we were to describe it simply in one sentence I would
say it seems as if the entire world is crashing around us. The whole idea of destruction is what seems to
be at play here.