Teaching Packet

Art Tales: Henri Matisse

Part of Art Tales for Pre-K

Henri Matisse was always fascinated by colors. He spent many years painting with a paintbrush. But as he got older, he tried a new kind of art: the paper cut-out! To try something new, he took brightly painted papers, cut them into shapes, and arranged them in designs. Matisse called this “painting with scissors.”

Two columns of brightly colored rectangles are layered with geometric shapes and organic forms in this abstract, vertical artwork. The rectangles are painted, and the abstract shapes are cut from pieces of painted paper. The left column is stacked top to bottom with rectangles in black, lime green, sage green, sunshine yellow, watermelon pink, and amethyst purple. There is also a pink triangle above the pink rectangle, near the middle of the column. Spanning different sections of the column are a blue spiral and a curling blue line, white petal-like shapes, and purple and blue stylized leaves, perhaps seaweed, and triangles. A narrow black form like the profile of a stylized fish and a curve radiating spikes float in the middle of the column. The rectangles of the right column are silvery gray, goldenrod yellow, bright green, lime green, sunshine yellow, and sapphire blue. The column is layered with two more black spiky shapes, a short vertical royal-blue curving line, and an elongated, white U shape. A long, black S-shape floats over the top four rectangles, and a pumpkin-orange spiral lies on top of a sapphire-blue circle near the yellow rectangle at the bottom. That yellow rectangle has blue rectangle at its center and a darker yellow rectangle to the left. There is a white wavy line up the blue area, a black wavy line to each side in the yellow, and one black heart-shape near the each of the lower corners of the blue field. Higher up, the lime-green rectangle in each column also has a smaller, darker green rectangle painted within. The work is set against a flat, parchment-brown background. The artist wrote the title in black cursive letters across bottom, “les betes de la mer...” and signed and dated the lower right, “H. Matisse 50.”
Henri Matisse, Beasts of the Sea, 1950, gouache on paper, cut and pasted on white paper, mounted on canvas, Ailsa Mellon Bruce Fund, 1973.18.1

Grade Level

Subject

Language

Look

What colors do you see? Find the same colors in different places throughout the artwork.

What shapes do you see? What do these shapes remind you of?

Do you see any lines in this work of art? Use your fingertip like a paintbrush to trace the lines in the air. What words would you use to describe the lines?

Where do we see these colors and shapes in nature?

How do you think Henri Matisse might have made this? What tools could he have used?

Read

Watch this video for a reading of "Henri's Scissors" by Jeanette Winter.

Mira este video en español

Books

Carmela Full of Wishes (Spanish language version: Los deseos de Carmela)
by Matt de la Peña and Christian Robinson

Carmela spends her birthday walking around her neighborhood with her brother, thinking about what to wish for herself and her family.

Henri’s Scissors (Spanish language version: Las tijeras de Matisse)
by Jeanette Winter

This book offers the story of Matisse's life, from his childhood to his old age, when he began to explore paper cut-outs.

Make: Paint With Scissors

Follow along with the video to try "painting" with scissors.

Mira este video en español

You Will Need

  • Scissors
  • Colored paper (or painted paper)
  • Heavyweight white paper
  • Glue sticks

Use colored paper or, like Henri Matisse, make your own colored paper by painting entire sheets of white paper in one color. Paint on heavyweight paper or cardstock so the paper doesn’t curl as it dries.

Next, think of a theme or place for your artwork, such as a garden, a city, or the sea. Use scissors to cut the colored paper into different shapes likes trees, buildings, or waves.

Arrange your cut-out shapes on a large piece of white paper. You can use the leftover pieces of colored paper too! Move the different pieces until you are happy with the design, then glue your shapes in place.

Vocab Bank

  • cut-out
  • design
  • theme

Download

Art Tales: Coloring and Cut-Outs booklet (PDF, 3.5 MB)

Art Tales for Pre-K (PDF, 7.2 MB)

Primeros Pasos En El Arte (PDF, 7.5 MB)

Primeros Pasos En El Arte: Colorear y Recortes (PDF, 3.7 MB)

An Eye for Art: Henri Matisse teaching resource (PDF, 9.4 MB)

Visit

Register for the Art Tales pre-K school tour

Submit Student Work

Send images of your students' projects that follow these activities - email [email protected]

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Two columns of brightly colored rectangles are layered with geometric shapes and organic forms in this abstract, vertical artwork. The rectangles are painted, and the abstract shapes are cut from pieces of painted paper. The left column is stacked top to bottom with rectangles in black, lime green, sage green, sunshine yellow, watermelon pink, and amethyst purple. There is also a pink triangle above the pink rectangle, near the middle of the column. Spanning different sections of the column are a blue spiral and a curling blue line, white petal-like shapes, and purple and blue stylized leaves, perhaps seaweed, and triangles. A narrow black form like the profile of a stylized fish and a curve radiating spikes float in the middle of the column. The rectangles of the right column are silvery gray, goldenrod yellow, bright green, lime green, sunshine yellow, and sapphire blue. The column is layered with two more black spiky shapes, a short vertical royal-blue curving line, and an elongated, white U shape. A long, black S-shape floats over the top four rectangles, and a pumpkin-orange spiral lies on top of a sapphire-blue circle near the yellow rectangle at the bottom. That yellow rectangle has blue rectangle at its center and a darker yellow rectangle to the left. There is a white wavy line up the blue area, a black wavy line to each side in the yellow, and one black heart-shape near the each of the lower corners of the blue field. Higher up, the lime-green rectangle in each column also has a smaller, darker green rectangle painted within. The work is set against a flat, parchment-brown background. The artist wrote the title in black cursive letters across bottom, “les betes de la mer...” and signed and dated the lower right, “H. Matisse 50.”

Educational Resource:  Art Tales: Henri Matisse

A lesson for preschool to kindergarten students about artist Henri Matisse’s 1950 artwork Beasts of the Sea. Students learn how to look at this artwork, what you can read to learn more, how you can paint with scissors, and a list of vocabulary terms related to this activity.

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The spruce-green silhouette of a broad-shouldered man standing among palm fronds looks up at a faint red star against a field of green circles radiating out from the horizon in this abstracted vertical painting. The scene is made with mostly flat areas of color to create silhouettes in shades of slate and indigo blue, lemon-lime and pea green, plum purple, and brick red. To our right of center, the man faces our left in profile. His eye is a slit and he has tight curly hair. The position of his feet, standing on a coffin-shaped, brick-red box, indicate his back is to us. He stands with legs apart and his arms by his sides. Terracotta-orange shackles around his wrists are linked with a black chain. A woman to our left, perhaps kneeling, holds her similarly shackled hands up overhead. A line of shackled people with their heads bowed move away from this pair, toward wavy lines indicating water in the distance. The water is pine green near the shore and lightens, in distinct bands, to asparagus green on the horizon. On our left, two, tall pea-green ships sail close to each other at the horizon, both titled at an angle to our right. Concentric circles radiate out from the horizon next to the ships to span the entire painting, subtly altering the color of the silhouettes it encounters. To our left, a buttercup-yellow beam shines from the red star in the sky across the canvas, overlapping the man’s face. Spruce-blue palm trees grow to our right while plum-purple palm fronds and leaves in smoke gray and blood red frame the painting along the left corners and edge. The artist signed the painting in the lower right, in black, “AARON DOUGLAS.”

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