[MUSIC PLAYING] SPEAKER 1: We're at
the Musee d'Orsay, and we're looking at a really
early and important Henri Matisse. This is "Luxe,
Calme et Volupte." And the title and the
subject comes from a poem by Baudelaire. And it's a really
enigmatic painting, and one that I think we
should locate in its making. It was made during a
summer trip to the seaside with one of the great
post-Impressionist painters, Signac, who was a Pointillist. And so you can clearly see
the influence of that art, of the art of Seurat,
of Signac, here. But this is not Pointillism. You know, it does use
these little brush strokes, which have pieces of
independent color, but it's using it in a way
that really, in a sense, doesn't understand, or
it isn't interested in, the optical effects that
Signac was interested in. SPEAKER 2: They're much
more intense colors. They're very vivid
and saturated colors used very
unnaturalistically, not used the way that Seurat
was interested in, in terms of
increasing luminosity. Here, the colors are almost
an affront to the senses. There are reds and
purples and oranges. SPEAKER 1: That's perfect,
because the next year, Matisse, with a number of
other painters, will become known as "Les fauves." SPEAKER 2: The wild beasts. SPEAKER 1: That's right. Using color in such
radical and aggressive ways that they're accused
of being madmen. SPEAKER 2: And
you can definitely see that beginning
to happen here. SPEAKER 1: But
this is a painting that's meant to have a kind
of classical aspect to it. It's not meant to be
aggressive in that sense. SPEAKER 2: There's
a real tension here. SPEAKER 1: There is, between
this notion of luxury, of calm, of this kind of
ideal, almost classicized past. And of course, this wildly
imaginative use of color. SPEAKER 2: But
there's also a tension between the forms
themselves, which seem classical and creative, in
a way, where line is primarily important. These beautiful harmonious
lines and the arrangement between the figures
that might remind us of the art of Puvis de
Chavannes, or in Cezanne's "Bathers," the structured
relationship of forms, and that, in contrast,
with this wild color. SPEAKER 1: Where it's creating
this tremendously activated surface, where it seems like
the paint is constantly shifting and in motion. It seems so antithetical-- SPEAKER 2: To the calm. SPEAKER 1: Right, to
the very subject matter. It's an artist who's
in total flux, who's looking for a
pathway, who's looking to understand what
painting can now do. What to do with this
extraordinary freedom that is available to the
artist at the beginning of the 20th century. SPEAKER 2: Exactly. I think that the artist at
the end of the 19th century had bequeathed to the artists
of the early 20th century this incredible freedom
in terms of color, in terms of thinking
about the painting as an independent unit
and structure that can have its own internal
organization, a sense of subjectivity, of the
interiority of the artist is important. And one feels that this
is a moment of transition. SPEAKER 1: And yet the painting
itself is a tour de force. It's an incredibly
beautiful thing to look at, even with all of
its internal contradictions. [MUSIC PLAYING]