Henri Matisse and the Fauves

Seascape at Port-en-Bessin, Normandy by Georges Seurat

Georges Seurat, Seascape at Port-en-Bessin, Normandy, 1888, National Gallery of Art, Washington, Gift of the W. Averell Harriman Foundation in memory of Marie N. Harriman 1972.9.21

Influences

Fauve painters were influenced by several postimpressionist artists, especially Georges Seurat, Paul Gauguin, and Vincent van Gogh. These painters had turned away from the impressionists' aim of capturing primarily visual effects of light and atmosphere.

When Matisse arrived in Collioure in 1904, he had been working in the neoimpressionist style of Seurat, Paul Signac, and others. Hoping to give scientific rigor to impressionism, these artists had been experimenting with the use of pure, unmixed colors.