Henri Matisse, The Dessert: Harmony in Red, 1908, Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia

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Understanding Art Criticism Art criticism is
studying, understanding, and judging works of art.
Henri Matisse, The Dessert Harmony in Red, 1908,
Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia
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• Solving art mysteries is one of the jobs that art
  critics set out to accomplish.
• What if you dont know what an artwork is
  communicating?
• How can you figure it out?
• Following the steps of art criticism can help you
  discover lots of clues to really understand and
  appreciate a work of art.

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• The Steps of Art Criticism
• In each step of art criticism, you are answering
  a different question. The four steps of art
  criticism are
• Description What do I see?
• Analysis How is the work organized?
• Interpretation What is the artist trying to
  communicate?
• Judgment Is this a successful work of art?

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Description Look at the work of art here
What do you see?
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Red room Wall paper Chairs, wooden, cane
seat Table, table cloth Woman Fruit wine Cut
flowers in vase Window Landscape Trees, bushes,
flowers, building Colors- red, blue,green,
yellow, white, black
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Analysis Look again at the painting by Henri
Matisse
How is the work arranged? Break down the
painting into its composition, or the way the art
principles are used to organize the art elements.
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• ELEMENTS OF ART/DESIGN
• Color
• Line
• Shape
• Form
• Space
• Texture

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• ELEMENTS OF ART/DESIGN
• Colorred- jarring color blue, yellow, green,
  black, white
• Linestraight-outline table, chairs / curvy-
  flower pattern
• Shapegeometric / organic
• Form flattened
• Spacecrowded space, flattened plane
• Texturepatterns

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• PRINCIPLES OF ART/DESIGN
• Unity
• Balance
• Contrast
• Emphasis
• Movement
• Rhythm
• Proportion

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• PRINCIPLES OF ART/DESIGN
• Unity color, shape line
• Balance woman-chair, room- window
• Contrast red-green, black-white pattern-solid,
  curve-straight
• Emphasis woman arranging fruit
• Movement diagional bottom right to top left,
  curved lines of pattern trees
• Rhythm repeated- curved pattern (wall paper,
  cloth, trees), dots of color (lemons/flowers)
• Proportion large with small square

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Interpretation What do you think Matisse is
trying to communicate?
Give your opinion based on the clues you have
collected. What ideas, moods, emotions, and
stories do you think the artwork communicates?
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In Matisse's Harmony in Red (Red Room) 1908-9,
red is the predominant color in the painting.
How does the predominant redness make you feel?
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The color red usually makes one feel warmth
because it is associated with the sun and fire,
but also because the color red has a
physiological affect that excites and stimulates.
More energy is reflected from warm colors than
from the cooler ones. "Warm" colors - red, yellow
and orange - traditionally are thought to evoke
feelings of heat, whether psychological or real.
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Artists understand the power of color in
affecting the viewer's feelings. Throughout art
history, artists have used color to convey and
heighten the emotional content of a painting. In
the early twentieth century, artists began to
focus on color as a direct translation of their
feelings, and to use color as an emotional force.
This group of artists was called the Fauves (or
the wild beasts in French) and they included
Henri Matisse (1869-1954), Maurice de Vlaminck
(1876-1958), and Andre Derain (1880-1954.)
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Les Fauves (French for The Wild Beasts) were a
short-lived and loose grouping of early 20th
century Modern artists whose works emphasized
painterly qualities and strong color over the
representational or realistic values retained by
Impressionism. While Fauvism as a style began
around 1900 and continued beyond 1910, the
movement as such lasted only three years,
19051907, and had three exhibitions.
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How would you feel about the painting if it was
mostly green? Or overwhelmingly blue instead of
red? This painting went through three successive
stages. First it was green, then blue, after it
hung at the Salond'Automne in 1908. It was
finally delivered in scarlet to the Russian
collector Shchukin to decorate his dining room.
Did you know that the color red in many
restaurants is there only to make customers
hungry, and to encourage them to order more than
they normally would. Red walls and décor also
cause people to eat faster, since the color
increases our normal levels of energy.
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What affect did the final location for the
painting (Shchukin dining room) have on
Matisses color and subject choice?
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Matisse also limits his perspective in this work.
He makes breaks in the line around the table,
frames the chair, the window, and the little
house in an innovative manner by cutting them
off, and encloses two of the planes, the green
and the blue in a window.
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Judgment Do you think this work is successful?
Why or why not?
What reasons can you give for your idea of why
this is a good or bad artwork?
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The Dessert Harmony in Red is a painting by
French artist Henri Matisse, from 1908. It is
considered by some critics to be Matisse's
masterpiece. It is an example of Impressionism's
lack of a central focal point. The painting was
ordered as "Harmony in Blue," but Matisse was
dissatisfied with the result, and so he painted
it over with his preferred red.
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Now look at the painting by Marc Chagall called
Paris Through the Window and answer each of the
art criticism questions on your
own Description What do I see?Analysis How
are elements and principles of art
used?Interpretation What is the artist trying
to communicate?Judgment Is this a successful
work of art?
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Description What do I see?
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Analysis How are elements and principles of art
used?
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Interpretation What is the artist trying to
communicate?
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Judgment Is this a successful work of art?
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TEST YOUR UNDERSTANDING! Look at the painting by
Marc Chagall called Paris Through the Window,
1913 and choose the Art Criticism step that each
statement belongs in.
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1. This painting was painted with oil paints on
canvas. a. description b. analysis c.
interpretation d. judgment
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• This seems like a very happy time for the
  artist.
• a. description
• b. analysis
• c. interpretation
• d. judgment

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• The artist uses the element of color to add
  visual interest to the painting.
• a. description
• b. analysis
• c. interpretation
• d. judgment

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• The artist is depicting his vision of Paris.
• a. description
• b. analysis
• c. interpretation
• d. judgment

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5. The artist uses many colors. a.
description b. analysis c. interpretation
d. judgment
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6. The artist successfully uses surrealistic
imagery. a. description b. analysis c.
interpretation d. judgment
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7. The cat represents the artist looking out at
Paris. a. description b. analysis c.
interpretation d. judgment
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• After Marc Chagall moved to Paris from Russia in
  1910, his paintings quickly came to reflect the
  latest avant-garde styles.
• In Paris Through the Window, Chagalls Cubism is
  semitransparent overlapping planes of vivid color
  in the sky above the city.
• The Eiffel Tower, which appears in the cityscape
• Maybe a metaphor for Paris and perhaps modernity
  itself.
• Chagalls parachutist might also refer to
  contemporary experience, since the first
  successful jump occurred in 1912.
• Other motifs suggest the artists native Vitebsk.
  
• This painting is an enlarged version of a window
  view in a self-portrait painted one year earlier,
  in which the artist contrasted his birthplace
  with Paris.
• The figure in Paris Through the Window has been
  read as the artist looking at once westward to
  his new home in France and eastward to Russia.
  Chagall, however, refused literal interpretations
  of his paintings.

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1913 20 August - 700 feet above Buc, parachutist
Adolphe Pegond jumps from an airplane and lands
safel y.
1914 3 August - Germany declares war on Russia's
ally France. 9 August - Battle of Mulhouse
begins, the opening attack of World War I by the
French army against Germany.