Henri Matisse - Master of Impressionist Art

“What I dream of is an art of balance, purity, and serenity devoid of troubling or depressing subject matter... a soothing, calming influence on the mind, something like a good armchair which provides relaxation from physical fatigue.” - Henri Matisse Henri Matisse was born in Le Cateau-Cambresis, Nord, France. He grew up in Bohain-en-Vermandois, Picardy, France, where his parents owned a flower business; he was their first son. In 1887, he went to Paris to study law, working as a court administrator in Le Cateau-Cambrésis after gaining his qualification. He began painting first in 1889, after his mother brought him art supplies during a period of convalescence following an attack of appendicitis. He discovered "a kind of paradise" as he later described it and decided to become an artist. In 1891, he returned to Paris to study art at the Académie Julian and became a student of William-Adolphe Bouguereau and Gustave Moreau. Initially, he painted still-lives and landscapes in a traditional style proficiently. Matisse was influenced by the works of earlier masters such as Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin, Nicolas Poussin, Antoine Watteau and Edouard Manet. Chardin was one of Matisse's most admired painters; as an art student, he made copies of four Chardin paintings in the Louvre. He emerged as a Post-Impressionist and achieved prominence as the leader of the French movement, `Fauvism’. He preferred to use color as the foundation for expressive and decorative paintings. He became famous for his original use of colour. He had skills as a draughtsman and a printmaker. He went on also to become a sculptor but was known essentially as a painter. He defined revolutionary developments in the visual arts during the first couple of decades of the twentieth century along with Pablo Picasso. The intense colour patterns of his paintwork between 1900 and 1905 brought him recognition as one of the Fauves (French for "wild beasts"). Many of his finest works were created in the years after 1906 when he projected a meticulous style that stressed on decorative forms. When ill health in his last years prevented him from painting, he created an important style through the medium of cut paper collage. Matisse’s mastery of the expressive medium of colour displayed in a body of work that spanned over a half-century won him recognition as a leading figure in the modern art and impressionist scene. Matisse is regarded, along with Picasso and Marcel Duchamp, as one of the three artists who helped to define the revolutionary developments in the plastic arts in the beginning decades of the twentieth century. Matisse has been hailed as an upholder of the classical tradition in French painting during the Impressionist era. His mastery of the expressive language of colour and drawing won him acclaim as a leading figure in modern art. Many of Matisse's paintings from 1898 to 1901 make use of a Divisionism technique he adopted after reading Paul Signac's essay, "Eugene Delacroix and Néoimpressionism". He made his first attempt at sculpture, a copy after Antoine-Louis Barye, in 1899. After that, he devoted much of his energy to working with clay, completing `The Slave’ in 1903. His first solo exhibition was at Ambroise Vollard's gallery in 1904, without much success. His fondness for bright and expressive colour became more pronounced after he spent the summer of 1904 painting in St. Tropez with the neo-Impressionists Signac and Henri Edmond Cross. In that year, he painted the most important of his works in the neo-Impressionist style, Luxe and Calme et Volupté. His paintings of this period are characterised by flat shapes and controlled lines and he used pointillism in a less rigid way than before. In 1905, Matisse exhibited in a room at the Salon d'Automne. The paintings expressed emotion with wild and dissonant colours. Matisse showed `Open Window’ and `Woman with the Hat’ at the Salon. Critic Louis Vauxcelles described the work with the phrase, "Donatello au milieu des fauves!" meaning (`Donatello among the wild beasts’). His comment was printed on 17th October 1905 in Gil Blas, a daily newspaper and passed into popular usage. The exhibition, however, attracted harsh criticism with phrases such as "A pot of paint has been flung in the face of the public", said the critic Camille Mauclair. When his painting that was singled out for biased condemnation, `Woman with a Hat’ got eventually bought by Gertrude and Leo Stein, his morale improved significantly. Matisse maintained a long association with the Russian art collector Sergei Shchukin. He created one of his major works, `La Danse’, specially for Shchukin as part of a two-painting commission, the other painting being `Music’ in 1910. These paintings are found in the collection at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. Matisse died of a heart attack at the age of eighty-four in 1954. He is interred in the cemetery of the Monastère Notre Dame de Cimiez near Nice. Henri Matisse's impact on Fauvism movement is considerable. Thanks to the influence he had on paintings following the Second World War, Henri Matisse's reputation is higher than it has ever been before. Following the principle discussed by Hans Hofmann that color was responsible for structural configurations behind a picture, abstract works of Mark Rothko, Jackson Pollock showcased this style in their pieces. Matisse became an influential figure of the twentieth century and a decisive figure in the world of Impressionist Art of the time. By defining a visible pictorial language of colours and arabesque lines, Matisse had a huge impact on future and works produced by artists in the twentieth century. “If my story were ever to be written truthfully from start to finish, it would amaze everyone.” - Henri Matisse

In God's Name - David Yallop : A Review

This book is an earth-shattering one! It is a result of almost three years of concentrated investigation and it reveals a narrative which is a powerful revelation in a corrupt and wicked world. David Yallop argues persuasively and shocks the world with his conclusions. He has made the Vatican and the whole world sit up and take note. On 28th September, 1978, a murder took place in the Vatican of Pope John Paul I – Albino Luciani. Such acts happen in this world ‘in God’s name’. Albino Luciani was elected as the 263rd Pope in the history of Vatican. He stayed in his office for only thirty-three days but created fear among the wolves and the wicked in that short tenure. When he died suddenly, it does not take rocket science to understand that he was removed quite cunningly and poisoned and made to look like a cardiac arrest. The autopsy was also reduced by the powers to be. There simply had not been enough time. Or had there been? As David Yallop reveals, Pope John Paul I had, by the evening of September 28, 1978, decided on disquieting changes that would affect the dogma and chain of command of the Roman Catholic Church. These changes would be opposed by many, among them six powerful men who knew that the Pope's decisions could mean the end of their careers if not their lives; unless, of course, they acted first and silenced the Pope. Early on the morning of September 29, 1978, Albino Luciani was found dead. No official death certificate was ever issued. No autopsy was performed. The cause of death referred to by the Vatican in vague terms remained unknown. At 7:27 a.m. on that fateful September day, Vatican Radio announced that John Paul I had succumbed to a heart attack sometime the previous evening, the cover-up of the true circumstances surrounding his death had already been manipulated for key hours; while a vow of silence was forced on members of the Papal household. As a result, crucial evidence disappeared. In this boldly documented, minute-by-minute account of John Paul I's last hours and the events that followed, David Yallop reveals how the elaborate web of Vatican lies was fabricated and surveys the aims of the six powerful men who stood at the axis of a lethal conspiracy. Only thirty-three days after his election, Pope John Paul I, Albino Luciani, died in strange circumstances. Almost immediately rumours of a cover-up began to circulate around the Vatican. In his researches David Yallop uncovered an extraordinary story: behind the Pope's death lay a dark and complex web of corruption within the Church that involved the Freemasons, Opus Dei and the Mafia and the murder of the 'Pope's Banker' Roberto Calvi. When first published in 1984 In God's Name was denounced by the Vatican yet became an award-winning international bestseller. In this new edition, Yallop brings the story up to date and reveals new evidence that has been long buried concerning the truth behind the Vatican cover-up. This is a classic work of investigative writing whose revelations will continue to reverberate around the world. The murder of Pope John Paul reads like fiction but David Yallop weaves a strong case for this to have happened in real life. The Catholic Church and Vatican Bank have been laid bare. This work is an excellent read from a great author which will leave you wondering as to how evil power and money dominate the proceedings in the world we live in. Yallop was inspired to write this after he received scores of `leaks’ from within the Vatican; from people who were themselves shocked with the whole affair. His research can be termed as both exhaustive and perfect while being flawless. Here are some interesting facts from this book – Pope John Paul I (Luciani) was murdered principally for his determination to excommunicate hundred top-ranked Vatican officials who were Freemasons. At the time, Church canon law still debarred membership of Freemasons (even though the Nazi Pope, Pius XII, was himself a Freemason). Besides, several of these Freemasons were co-conspirators in the Vatican Bank scandal, in which 2.4 billion US dollars were misappropriated from the bank, having been channeled into fake Panamanian accounts. The masterminds of this swindle were members of P2 - an Italian branch of the Illuminati. Pictures speak a thousand words. One enlightening picture drawn in the book by Graham Yallop is that of Luciani jovially speaking with a Cardinal, only three hours before his death--quite obviously in the pink of health. Upon his death, he was pronounced dead of a "possible myocardial infarction." "Possible?" Since when would a death in the Vatican be allowed to be interred without an autopsy? All instincts say that he was poisoned. Subsequent to the murder of Luciani, the following events took place: Karol Wojtlya, the CIA's candidate, a Marxist but anti-Russian, was elected. Wojtlya ignored the banking scandal until various European nations threatened to sue the Vatican Bank for default, on their money. Ronald Reagan then bailed out the Vatican Bank with $300 million of `discretionary CIA funds’. This was certainly illicit CIA drug money. He also signed a Concordat with the Vatican in 1983. It was the Vatican that secured the 1984 election for Ronald Reagan. About the Author David Anthony Yallop was born in London, England on 27th January, 1937. He left high school at the age of fifteen and worked a low-level job at a newspaper before two years of compulsory military service in the Royal Air Force. After his service was completed, he worked a series of odd jobs before landing at a television station, where he became a floor manager and studio director before he started writing. He wrote numerous scripts for television shows including the BBC soap opera, `East Enders’. He wrote several books about true crime and conspiracy including `Deliver Us from Evil’; `Tracking the Jackal: The Search for Carlos, the World's Most Wanted Man’; `The Power and the Glory: Inside the Dark Heart of John Paul II's Vatican’ and `Beyond Belief: The Catholic Church and the Child Abuse Scandal’. `In God's Name: An Investigation into the Murder of Pope John Paul I’ – th e book on review here, received the Crime Writers' Association's Gold Dagger award for non-fiction in 1984. He died from complications of pneumonia on 23rd August, 2018 at the age of 81.