Joy of Life (Bonheur de Vivre) by Henri Matisse

Joy of Life (Bonheur de Vivre) - Henri Matisse - Oil Painting

Product Overview

Looking for fine art oil painting with real brushwork? Joy of Life (Bonheur de Vivre) is reproduced by hand in oils on artist-grade canvas after Henri Matisse. The result is a piece of fauvist oil painting wall decor that anchors a hallway and rewards a closer look.

Composition & Subject

1905
Oil on canvas
The Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States.

During his Fauve years Matisse often painted landscapes in the south of France during the summer and worked up ideas developed there into larger compositions upon his return to Paris. Joy of Live, the second of his important imaginary compositions, is typical of these. He used a landscape he had painted in Collioure to provide the setting for the idyll, but it is also influenced by ideas drawn from Watteau, Poussin, Japanese woodcuts, Persian miniatures, and 19th century Orientalist images of harems. The scene is made up of independent motifs arranged to form a complete composition. The massive painting and its shocking colors received mixed reviews at the Salon des Independants. Critics noted its new style - broad fields of color and linear figures, a clear rejection of Paul Signac's celebrated Pointillism.

Joy of Life is a large-scale painting (nearly 6 feet in height, 8 feet in width), depicting an Arcadian landscape filled with brilliantly colored forest, meadow, sea, and sky and populated by nude figures both at rest and in motion. As with the earlier Fauve canvases, color is responsive only to emotional expression and the formal needs of the canvas, not the realities of nature. The references are many, but in form and date, Bonheur de Vivre is closest to Cezanne's last great image of bathers.

Like Paul Cezanne, Matisse constructs the landscape so that it functions as a stage. In both works trees are planted at the sides and in the far distance, and their upper boughs are spread apart like curtains, highlighting the figures lounging beneath. And like Cezanne, Matisse unifies the figures and the landscape. Cezanne does this by stiffening and tilting his trunk-like figures. In Matisse's work, the serpentine arabesques that define the contours of the women are heavily emphasized, and then reiterated in the curvilinear lines of the trees.

The painting was purchased by a wealthy expatriate American writer-poet named Gertrude Stein and her brother, Leo Stein, who shared a home filled with modern art at 27 Rue de Fleurus, in Paris. This was also the location for Gertrude Stein's weekly salon. Here, Matisse, Apollinaire, the young and largely unknown Picasso and other members of the avant-garde came together to exchange ideas.

Stein was able to attract such a crowd not only because of her literary skills but because she often provided financial support to these nearly destitute artists. In fact, the Steins bought Matisse's Bonheur de Vivre soon after its completion and hung it in their dining room for all to see. One person who saw it there was Picasso. By all accounts the painting's fame was too much for the terribly competitive young Spaniard. He determined to out-do Matisse, and he did with his 1907 canvas, Demoiselles d'Avignon (MoMA).

The fine art subject is rebuilt stroke by stroke in oil, giving the finished canvas the depth expected of fauvist oil painting wall decor.

How It Is Made

We use a 100% hand-painted process: stretched artist-grade canvas, layered oil pigment, and a final protective varnish. There are no inkjet prints or mechanical reproductions in this collection — just a painted fine art artwork made to order.

What Is Included

• Every fine art canvas is hand painted in oils; no mechanical or digital reproduction at any stage.
• A generous 2-inch blank canvas border surrounds the image to simplify mounting.
• Direct-from-studio worldwide delivery with no third-party resellers.
• Available canvas sizes for this hand painted oil painting: 20 X 24 in, 24 X 36 in, 30 X 40 in, 36 X 48 in, 48 X 72 in.
• Custom canvas dimensions are welcome for this fine art oil painting.
• We work with DHL, UPS, FedEx, USPS and additional couriers to keep delivery affordable.
• Complimentary stretching over wooden stretcher bars; ask us about a custom frame.
• A digital photo of your finished painting is emailed for approval before shipment.

Styling & Placement

Build a hallway gallery wall around this fine art oil painting, or let it stand alone as a single statement. The hand painted canvas finish keeps the fine art composition looking intentional in both classic and contemporary rooms.

Shipping & Guarantee

Whether the search term is fine art oil painting, hallway wall art, or fauvist oil painting wall decor, this hand painted canvas delivers the same thing: a real painted surface, made to your chosen dimensions.