Paintings of Matisse Trivia Quiz

Answer: The Schiedam Bottle

"The Schiedam Bottle" depicts an arrangement of fruit and silverware on a white linen tablecloth dominated by a large bottle of dark-colored glass. The painting now hangs in Russia's Hermitage Museum. "Vase and Fruit" was painted in 1901, the de Heem "La Desserte" homage dates from 1915-17. "Still Life With Magnolia" is a much later work, dating from the early 1940s.

Answer: The hands

In most of Matisse's paintings of people, the subjects either hide their hands behind their backs, in their pockets, or elsewhere. When the hands are shown, they are often blurred and unformed. Some of his paintings show that Matisse could paint the hand quite gracefully (and, in fact, considered the ability to paint hands to be the proof of an artist's talent), but he either found this difficult or simply did not wish to be bothered.

Although some of Matisse's figures are faceless ("visages vides"), this was done purely for artistic reasons.

Answer: Interior With Harmonium

This work marks a significant departure from the brightly colored still lifes, landscapes, and interiors which characterized Matisse's art up to this point. Indeed, the sombre color palette used in this painting (dark browns, oranges, and blues) set it apart from the majority of the artist's work.

There are other features of interest; the unusual angle of the painting (from the back left-hand corner of the instrument, giving the interior the effect of an opening fan), the blurred and indistinct white keys (a reflection of the artist's apparent mental block with hands and fingers?), and the bizarre and precarious placement of the objects on the harmonium, the vase of flowers and the book, giving a feeling of tension and uncertainty.

Answer: Pointillism

Matisse's experiments in the pointillist style are skillfully executed and exhibit a mosaic-like quality, but lack the spontaneity of Seurat and Signac.

Answer: Luxe (1907)

The paintings each depict a grouping of three women apparently after a bathe. The earlier version uses more subtle colors, shading, and contours. The second version uses solid colors and very clear outlines, giving the figures a flat appearance reminiscent almost of a cartoon. Matisse's purpose in creating these two identical groupings in different styles is unclear, but the second version prefigures a number of characteristics of his later style.

Answer: Amelie Matisse (the artist's wife)

Michael and Sarah Stein, the first owners of this portrait of Mme Matisse gave the painting this title. Matisse's depictions of his wife Amelie, from whom he was eventually separated, are highly unusual and seem to give us an insight into his troubled relations with her.

In a 1911 family portrait, she is the picture of solid, black-and-white, matriarchal respectability (almost like Whistler's mother); in a 1913 portrait, her hair and skin take on an equally gray hue which, combined with her formal clothes and feathered pillbox hat, make her look like an elderly woman.

Her strangely darkened eyes in this painting, moreover, give the impression of a mannequin. In the painting in question, Amelie sports a hairstyle featuring a severe topknot and revealing a prominent widow's peak, which at once suggests matronly propriety and at the same time gives her a somewhat Asian appearance.

The reason for livid green hue of the left side of the face (echoing the green background of the right hand side of the painting) makes for interesting speculation; was Amelie given to jealousy? Did she have a dual personality? Or was there actually a green light coloring half of her face?

Answer: Window at Tangier (1912)

This painting represents the quintessence of Matisse's mature style; the technique is seemingly artless and childlike, yet how skillfully the cylindrical glass tank of water is rendered, with the goldfish's reflections dancing on top. Equally vivid are the graceful habit of the geraniums and pink bellflowers on either side of the circular table, the texture of the heart-shaped philodendron leaves, and the verdegris patina of the metal chair and table legs. "The Arab Café" and "Zorah at the Terrace" both depict scenes from Morocco, which Matisse frequently visited. Both use a predominantly turquoise, blue, and white palette and each features a footed glass bowl of goldfish, which stand out charmingly from the contrasting blue background.

The 1914 "Interior" is subtitled "Goldfish Bowl" and features one similar to that in the 1911 painting. "Window at Tangier" features a sweeping view of that city from an open window, on the sill of which stand two vases of flowers (no goldfish bowl).

Answer: La Danse

Now in the Hermitage Museum, the two panels "La Musique" and "La Danse" were originally commissioned by the art collector Sergei Ivanovich Shchukin, whom Matisse met around 1910. Both paintings feature groupings of nude figures whose ruddy, terra-cotta coloration contrast dramatically with the vivid cobalt blue and deep green of the background. Matisse was apparently quite fond of the particularly graceful grouping in "La Danse"; in addition to having originally featured them in "Bonheur de Vivre", he used a section of the painting as a backdrop for a vase of nasturtiums on a stand in the 1912 painting "Nasturtiums in 'La Danse'".

Answer: Green

This celebrated painting was painted first in green, then in blue before the artist eventually redid it in red which sets off the view from the open window more effectively. The painting depicts a maid in black and white setting a table. The vivid ed of both tablecloth and wallpaper is set off by the elaborate pattern of blue flower baskets, framed in undulating blue garlands.

Answer: The Conversation

This singular painting is believed to have reflected the Matisses' troubled marriage. The artist stands on the left side of the painting; his ramrod-straight, rigid posture, accented by the vertical stripes of his pyjamas, give him the appearance almost of a marble column.

His hands, significantly and typically, are in his pockets. Amelie's seated figure, wrapped in a sombre black robe (her pose is believed to have been inspired by that of the Virgin in Martini's 1333 "Annunciation"), her hair let down for once, and her sallow coloring standing out starkly from the vivid, but dark blue of the wall, appears more pliant and vulnerable.

Despite the painting's title, there appears to be little actual conversation between these two; the mouths of both figures are so minute as to be practically non-existent. Rather, it is the contrast between the two figures which speaks volumes.

Some have pointed out that the decorative wrought-iron railing at the window seems to spell out the word "Non" ("No").

Answer: The Piano Lesson

Pierre was an enthusiastic student of the piano; he is depicted seated at the instrument. A triangular shadow, cast by the metronome, falls across the upper left side of his face, obliterating one eye. A peculiar blue-gray figure in the upper right corner of the painting seems, at first, to be a washstand with a mirror; on closer examination, it is actually a faceless female figure seated on a high stool, which prefigures Matisse's 1914 painting "Woman on a High Stool".

Answer: The Hindu Pose (1923)

One of Matisse's most celebrated canvases, this depicts Henriette semi-nude on a blue and white checkered seat with her hands over her head and her legs crossed, Hindi-style. A vase of pink flowers sits beside her. Henriette is also depicted in the 1927 painting "Woman With a Veil", as well as others.

Answer: Paper cutouts (decoupage)

Matisse referred to this as "cutting into color", and repeated the style of these works, albeit not the actual technique, for much of the decoration of the convent chapel at Vence in the early 1950s. It sometimes served a practical purpose as well, since the cutouts could be easily transported and assembled by the artist on site.

Answer: Empty Faces

If you speak French, you had an advantage in this question, since "Visages vides" means empty or blank (that is, featureless) faces. Matisse was certainly not reluctant to paint the face, he simply wished in these paintings to focus attention on the pose and the form of the body, without the personalization of facial features.

Answer: All of these

The paintings at Vence, as opposed to the other decoration, require some getting used to, even for an avid admirer of Matisse. The Stations of the Cross, in particular, resemble nothing so much as the crude scrawlings of a pious graffiti artist on a subway wall, which may have been partly the artist's intention. Only after long contemplation does one come to appreciate the innate power of the figures; the majestic fluidity of St. Dominic's garments, the innate poignancy of the faceless Virgin and child, the latter held up in a cruciform position, and the barbarism and cruelty achieved by the crude figures of the Stations. By contrast, the windows at Vence, using the style of Matisse's decoupage, throw brilliantly colored light on the austere figures on the walls.