Skip to Main Content

Overview

Matisse's Open Window, Collioure is an icon of early modernism. A small but explosive work, it is celebrated as one of the most important early paintings of the so-called fauve school, a group of artists, including André Derain, Maurice de Vlaminck, and Georges Braque, that emerged in 1904. Fauve paintings are distinguished by a startling palette of saturated, unmixed colors and broad brushstrokes. The effect is one of spontaneity, although the works reveal a calculated assimilation of techniques from postimpressionism and neo-impressionism. Open Window represents the very inception of the new manner in Matisse's art. [1] It was painted in Collioure, a small town on the Mediterranean coast of France to which Matisse traveled with Derain in the summer of 1905.

Open Window was exhibited at the landmark Salon d'automne of 1905, where Matisse and other fauve painters were greeted with critical skepticism and public disdain. The "fauve" (savage beast) label itself originated in the art critic Louis Vauxcelles' newspaper review of the exhibition. Vauxcelles, who reproached Matisse for the diminishing coherence of form in his work, praised the artist as "one of the most robustly gifted of today's painters"; his use of the term "fauves," which appears twice, is actually ambiguous: it alludes both to Matisse's fellow painters in Salle VII of the Salon and to the insensitive public, who scorned Matisse's work. Nonetheless, the press was soon referring to Salle VII as a cage aux fauves (cage of wild beasts), and, by 1906, this had become an accepted epithet for Matisse, Derain, and his fellow painters. [2]

The lyrical beauty of Open Window belies the optical and conceptual complexity of the work, in which conventional representation is subordinated throughout by other pictorial concerns. During the time when this work was painted, Derain wrote that even the shadows in Collioure were a "whole world of clarity and luminosity." [3] Matisse courts the maximum intensity of color, essentially eschewing chiaroscuro, the play of light and dark that creates an illusion of volume and spatial depth. Instead, the interior wall surrounding the window is equally divided into broad areas of blue-green and fuchsia, a contrast that is derived from the complementary opposition of green and red on the color wheel (this contrast recurs in the flowerpots at the bottom of the picture). Virtually the same, almost abstract, color relationship occurs in the background of Matisse's The Woman with the Hat (San Francisco Museum of Modern Art), also from this period. Further, Open Window also contains a dazzling variety of brushstrokes, from long blended marks to short, staccato touches. Matisse represented each area of the image—the interior of the room, the window itself, the balcony, the harbor view—with a distinctly different handling of the brush, creating an overall surface effect of pulsating cross-rhythms. Finally, the composition of the work is a series of frames within frames: the wall contains the window; the window frames the middle ground; and the balcony crops the landscape.

Comparing a painting to a window has been a conventional trope in art theory since the Renaissance. In making this comparison the very subject of a picture that is only cryptically representational (by the standards of the day), Matisse allowed Open Window, Collioure to epitomize a new direction in modern art, one in which paintings develop an increasing autonomy from the things they depict. The open window (and the painting-window metaphor) would subsequently become a central motif in Matisse's oeuvre.

(Text by Jeffrey Weiss, published in the National Gallery of Art exhibition catalogue, Art for the Nation, 2000)

Notes

1. For a lengthy discussion of this painting and its historical context, see Jack Flam, Matisse: The Man and His Art 1868-1918 (Ithaca and London, 1986), 125, 127-129, 132, 134.2. Roger Benjamin, "Fauves in the Landscape of Criticism: Metaphor and Scandal at the Salon," in Judi Freeman, ed., The Fauve Landscape [exh. cat., Los Angeles County Museum of Art] (Los Angeles, 1990), 252.3. André Derain, Lettres à Vlaminck (Paris, 1955), 154.

Inscription

lower right: Henri Matisse

Provenance

(Galerie Druet, Paris). Pieter Van der Velde [1848-1922], Le Havre, 1906; probably given to his son-in-law, General Réquin, Paris, 1915-1918. Private collection, Paris, in 1949;[1] purchased jointly by (Carstairs Gallery, New York) and (Sidney Janis Gallery, New York);[2] sold 6 August 1952 to Mr. and Mrs. John Hay Whitney, New York;[3] gift 1998 to NGA.

Exhibition History

1905
Salon d'Automne, Paris, 1905, no. 715.
1906
Henri Matisse, Galerie Druet, Paris, 1906, no. 41, as La fenêtre ouverte.
1952
Les Fauves, Museum of Modern Art, New York; Minneapolis Institute of Art; San Francisco Museum of Art; Art Gallery of Toronto, 1952-1953, no. 95, repro.
1953
5 Years of Janis: 5th Anniversary Exhibition, Sidney Janis Gallery, New York, 1953, no. 31, repro.
1955
Paintings from Private Collections, Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1955, unnumbered catalogue.
1956
Rétrospective Henri Matisse, Musée National d'Art Moderne, Paris, 1956, no. 15.
1959
Triumph der Farbe: Die Europäischen Fauves, Museum zu Allerheiligen, Schaffhausen, Switzerland; Orangerie des Schlosses Charlottenburg, Berlin, 1959, no. 2, repro.
1960
The John Hay Whitney Collection, Tate Gallery, London, 1960-1961, no. 37, repro.
1968
Matisse, Hayward Gallery, London, 1968, no. 34, repro.
1970
Henri Matisse, Grand Palais, Paris, 1970, no. 60, repro.
1976
The "Wild Beasts": Fauvism and Its Affinities, Museum of Modern Art, New York; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth, 1976, unnumbered catalogue, repro.
1978
Aspects of Twentieth-Century Art, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1978-1979, no. 36, repro.
1980
Post-Impressionism: Cross Currents in European and American Painting 1880-1906, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1980, no. 156, repro.
1983
The John Hay Whitney Collection, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1983, no. 50, repro.
1992
Henri Matisse: A Retrospective, Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1992-1993, no. 61, repro.
1993
Henri Matisse 1904-1917, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, 1993, no. 19, repro.
1998
Gifts to the Nation from Mr. and Mrs. John Hay Whitney, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1998-1999, no catalogue.
2000
Art for the Nation: Collecting for a New Century, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 2000-2001, unnumbered catalogue, repro.
2004
Fauve Painting from the Permanent Collection, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 2004-2005, no catalogue.
2005
Henri Matisse: Figur Farbe Raum [Henri Matisse: Figure Couleur Espace], Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Düsseldorf; Fondation Beyeler, Basel, 2006-2006, shown only in Basel, unnumbered cat., repro. (Basel/French cat.), fig. 15 (Basel/German cat.).
2012
The Ecstasy of Colour -- Munch, Matisse, and Expressionism, Museum Folkwang Essen, 2012-2013.
2013
Matisse and the Fauves, Albertina, Vienna, 2013-2014, no. 27, repro.
2014
Expressionism in Germany and France: From Van Gogh to Kandinsky, Kunsthaus Zürich; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Montreal Museum of Fine Art, 2014-2015, no. 150, pl. 110 (shown only in Los Angeles).
2014
Loan to display with permanent collection, The Phillips Collection, Washington, 2014-2015, no catalogue.
2014
Matisse and Friends: Selected Masterworks from the National Gallery of Art, Denver Art Museum, 2014-2015, no catalogue.
2015
Collection Conversations: The Chrysler and the National Gallery, Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, 2015, no catalogue.

Bibliography

1949
Duthuit, Georges. Les Fauves: Braque, Derain, Van Dongen, Dufy, Friesz, Manguin, Marquet, Matisse, Puy, Vlaminck. Geneva, 1949: repro. 37.
1954
Diehl, Gaston and Agnes Humbert. Henri Matisse. Paris, 1954:33, repro. no. 24.
1956
Rewald, John. "French Paintings in the collection of Mr. and Mrs. John Hay Whitney." The Connoisseur 134, no. 552 (April 1956):138, repro.
1962
Crespelle, Jean-Paul. Les Fauves. Neuchâtel, 1962:7.
1969
Russell, John. The World of Matisse 1869-1954. New York, 1969: 60, repro. 61.
1971
Aragon, Louis. Henri Matisse, roman. 2 vols. 1971:1:140, repro. no. XVI.
1971
Orienti, Sandra. Matisse. London, New York, Sydney, and Toronto:1971. 20.
1973
Jacobus, John. Henri Matisse. New York, 1973: 110, repro. no. 13.
1978
Edlerfield, John. The Cut-Outs of Henri Matisse. New York, 1978: 15-16, repro. no. 13.
1979
Gowing, Lawrence. Matisse. New York and Toronto, 1979: 51, repro. no. 33.
1982
Schneider, Pierre, Massimo Carra and Xavier Deryng. Tout l'oeuvre peint de Matisse 1904-1928. 1982:no. 40, repro.
1983
Jacobus, John. Henri Matisse. New York, 1983: 69, repro. 70.
1984
Watkins, Nicholas. Matisse. London, 1984: 63, repro. 61.
1987
Guillard, Jacqueline and Maurice. Matisse: Le rythme et la ligne. Paris and New York, 1987: repro. no. 17.
1991
Neret, Gilles. Matisse. 1991:35, repro. 29.
1992
Schneider, Pierre. Matisse. 1992: 220-222, repro. 221.
1993
Labaume, Vincent. Matisse. 1993: repro. no. 38.
1994
Milner, Frank. Henri Matisse. 1994: repro. 40.
2004
Hand, John Oliver. National Gallery of Art: Master Paintings from the Collection. Washington and New York, 2004: 414-415, no. 345, color repro.
2009
Gariff, David, Eric Denker, and Dennis P. Weller. The World's Most Influential Painters and the Artists They Inspired. Hauppauge, NY, 2009: 150, color repro.

Related Content

  • Sort by:
  • Results layout:
Show  results per page
The image compare list is empty.