Matisse, Simple beauty by Paul Chapman

Paul is an Art Historian and a National Gallery trained guide with many years of experience working in education. As a freelance Paul delivers courses and lectures for a wide range of educational organisations. Paul has also given talks and tours for art associations/societies in Museums and Galleries in the UK and Europe. As a writer, Paul has published a book, which examines the subject of cultural crossovers and appropriations in 20th century painting. Paul has a long-standing commitment, in conjunction with the National Gallery as a tour guide at the Longford Castle art collection and he is also a visiting tutor at Marlborough College and a tutor at MCSS.

Matisse is regarded, along with Pablo Picasso, as one of the artists who best helped to define the revolutionary developments in the visual arts throughout the opening decades of the twentieth century. His intense use of colour in his paintings between 1900 and 1905 brought him notoriety as one of the Fauves (wild beasts). Matisse developed a rigorous style of decorative motifs and bold flat colours. During WWI he moved from Paris to the South of France, here his work became more figurative and traditional and he was heralded as an upholder of the French Classical tradition. In later age he had a second flourish as an avant-garde artist and developed his cut-out style, using collage techniques with coloured paper. One of Matisse’s late works was the design and decoration of the Chapel at Rosaire de Vence, A truly important artist of the 20th century and an inspiration to countless generations of painters that followed.