The objective of this paper is to discuss how Henri-Émile-Benoît Matisse and Pablo Picasso can be seen as in being inspired by and breaking free of Paul Cézanne’s work of art The Large Bathers. Through this paper I will briefly discuss the lives of all three individuals and their influences in an effort to understand how these painters each had their own unique style.
Who was Matisse?
Henri-Émile-Benoît Matisse lived from 1869 to 1954, he was a french citizen. He started early in his career painting still life paining, however when Fauvism became popular around 1900 he switched styles and entered in to the world of Fauvism himself. Much of his most popular works and masterpieces are from this period in his life. "Around …show more content…
The painting was done in 1907 and is almost 8 feet by 8 feet. "The work portrays five nude female prostitutes from a brothel on Carrer d'Avinyó (Avinyó Street) in Barcelona. Each figure is depicted in a disconcerting confrontational manner and none are conventionally feminine. The women appear as slightly menacing and rendered with angular and disjointed body shapes. Three figures on the left exhibit facial features in the Iberian style of Picasso's native Spain, while the two on the right are shown with African mask-like features. The racial primitivism evoked in these masks, according to Picasso, moved him to "liberate an utterly original artistic style of compelling, even savage force.” (Les Demoiselles …show more content…
Paul Cézanne lived from 1839 to 1906 and was a French born artist who “whose work laid the foundations of the transition from the 19th-century conception of artistic endeavour to a new and radically different world of art in the 20th century. Cézanne's often repetitive, exploratory brushstrokes are highly characteristic and clearly recognizable. He used planes of colour and small brushstrokes that build up to form complex fields. The paintings convey Cézanne's intense study of his subjects.” (Paul