22 October 2023
Marquet and Matisse forever
Weather has finally cleared after a week of rain and I was able to get out two nights ago to make this painting. It so reminds me of Albert Marquet, a painter I’ve always loved. Once in a while I come up with images that strangely feel directly inspired by him even if he wasn’t remotely on my mind. What was it, I wondered, that felt so familiar in this picture? How do I define it? Looking at it this morning I perceived that it was really just a feeling, and I like that. If I paint a picture wherein craft and spontaneous inspiration can take charge of my usually undisciplined self to make something interesting then I'm happy. I really love the feeling in this, and I'm surprised that I was the one who was actually lucky enough to have created it. How, I have no idea. Is it grace?
Sometimes, pictures whatever their size or importance, elicit artistic familiarity through any number of ways. Technically, I could note that he used a lot of white paint which he mixed into all his colours giving his pictures a feeling of a soft overall harmony. Here in this painting of mine, it’s through a gentle sense of light that permeates this simple image. For me personally, it also shares with Marquet a sensual fabric embedded throughout the surface that reveals an overwhelming emotional complicity with his entire oeuvre.
So to say that I am a huge fan of Albert Marquet would be redundant at this point. He was an unabashed sensualist, with whom no doubt, I identified so ardently as a child. I was drawn in quickly as a humming bird to honeysuckle.
Indeed, in my opinion, he was far more of a sensualist than his close and dear friend, Henri Matisse, who achieved superstar status late in his career principally because he was far more of an adventurer than Marquet. Matisse, like an inveterate scientist ventured into newer and heretofore unexplored regions of Painting.
To be sure, Marquet was more comfortable within the confines of traditional painting motifs, and because of this, he took less chances. He was a ‘steadier’ painter than Matisse but one who perhaps reached less heights because of that. What I mean is that his brilliance is even-handed. Perhaps I could explain this in tennis terms, if there are any old timers out there; Marquet was to Matisse as was Björn Borg to Jon McEnroe back in the comfortable world of base line tennis. Like McEnroe, who expanded the game of serve and volley, Matisse ventured far out of his comfort zone (and our own) but could sometimes miss the mark. When he is on, he is the best, so don’t get me wrong, I love Matisse, but because he was so willing to experiment, he naturally failed more, often producing stilted and somewhat academic work. Marquet, despite his traditional craft, was never an academic. unlike his good friend Matisse, he was tethered to older, more traditional means of expression. He was a true Romantic unlike Matisse, I think.
I became aware of Marquet’s painting in my father’s books when I was still a child with no understanding of painting. I was just naturally drawn to a feeling in his work. Why is that? Why is someone drawn to certain pictures or even certain painters? Whatever it is, isn’t it grand? Isn’t it what keeps art alive and going full steam ahead in this weird cultural world of ours?
Much later in life, I fell in love with his drawings which really got me out into the streets where (and when) I finally realised just how much I had always despised drawing from both the model and the still life indoors. Marquet’s spontaneous drawings, along with those of Léo Marchutz, were to become my biggest influences later in life when I found my own assurance with crayon and paper. The most coveted book in my library is a thick catalogue full of Marquet's ink drawings from an exhibition I once saw. In these drawings I sense that he is a far superior draftsman than Matisse when using brush and ink, although I would decidedly be in the minority on this judgement. Where Marquet is fluid and spontaneous, and in a certain ‘Japanese Zen’ sort of spirit, Matisse feels to me stilted and dry, as if were still trying to please his staid professors at The Beaux Arts in Paris. Though later on in his life, I think when Matisse began painting more fluidly, he did open up to a more spontaneous way of drawing. His simple pencil line drawings are really wonderful an accomplished.
Anyway, as always, there is so much to say about all of this,,,,,, It’s true that at times, I can be harsh with regard to Matisse, but hey! I'll admit that my ideas have disturbed not just a few friends over observations like this. After all, Henri Matisse is a kind God even to the Post-Modernists out there who grudgingly give him a pass despite his need to express all the figurative beauty of the world through the craft of painting. Isn't it for this very reason that so many painters and a giant public, really adore and appreciate his devotion to art? Is it not for this love of colourful joy that makes him so popular?
As a painter, my affection for a particular picture isn't always because it looks good or even because it answers something deep inside me. Although these are valid reasons, important ones for sure, mais non! It's really because the artist in me admires the wild solutions that always need to be solved within the complex parameters of each picture by the painter. And is it not like that for any vocation which is practiced with diligent care?
Addendum:
Matisse and Marquet were very close friends throughout their lives. They wrote each other continously for decades. I’ve read their correspondence in two small books published in France, and they are the kind of small books that gives one hope for, not just Art History, but also humanity and the fraternal necessity of community.
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