Luxe, Calme et Volupté

Luxe, Calme et Volupté
English: Luxury, Calm and Pleasure
Artist Henri Matisse
Year 1904
Type Oil on canvas
Dimensions 98.5 cm × 118.5 cm (37 in × 46 in)
Location Musée d'Orsay, Paris

Luxe, Calme et Volupté is an oil painting by the French artist Henri Matisse. Both foundational in the oeuvre of Matisse and a pivotal work in the history of art, Luxe, Calme et Volupté is considered the starting point of Fauvism.[1]

Background

Luxe, Calme et Volupté was painted by Matisse in 1904, after a summer spent working in St. Tropez on the French Riviera alongside the neo-Impressionist painters Paul Signac and Henri-Edmond Cross.[2] The painting is Matisse's most important work in which he used the Divisionist technique advocated by Signac, which Matisse had first adopted after reading Signac's essay "D'Eugène Delacroix au Néo-impressionisme" in 1898.[3] Signac purchased the work, which was exhibited in 1905 at the Salon des Indépendants. Matisse abandoned the Divisionist technique the following year and became one of the pioneers of Fauvism.

The painting's title comes from the poem L'Invitation au voyage, from Charles Baudelaire's volume Les Fleurs du mal (The Flowers of Evil):

Là, tout n'est qu'ordre et beauté,
Luxe, calme et volupté.

There, all is order and beauty,
Luxury, peace, and pleasure.[1]

  1. ^ Poem and translation on Fleursdumal.org The translation is from William Aggeler, The Flowers of Evil (Fresno, CA: Academy Library Guild, 1954)

History

Exhibitions

Bibliography

Notes

  1. Henri Matisse, Luxe, Calme et Volupté, Déficience visuelle, Musée d'Orsay, Paris
  2. UCLA Art Council et al. 1966, p. 11
  3. Oxford Art Online, "Henri Matisse"

References

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