The Riot of 1905

Henri Matisse did not walk into the Salon d'Automne in 1905 looking to start a war. He just wanted to show a portrait of his wife, Amélie. She sat for him in a massive hat and a dress she probably stitched together herself. But when the doors opened in Paris, the public did not see a loyal wife. They saw a crime scene.

The critics lost their minds. They saw the green smear across her nose and the riot of violet on her cheek and decided Matisse had lost his grip on reality. One critic looked at the room and called the artists wild beasts, ‘fauves’. That was how Fauvism was born. It was an insult that stuck like a badge of honor.

Matisse was not trying to be difficult. He was just done with the lie that skin has to look like skin and light has to look like a sunbeam. He used color to talk about how it felt to look at her. It was raw and loud and deeply uncomfortable for a public used to smooth marble and polite shadows.

Leo and Gertrude Stein hated it at first. They stood in front of it and felt the same punch in the gut everyone else did. But then they bought it. They realized that once you see the world through Matisse's eyes, the old way of painting starts to look like a funeral. They saw the future in that messy hat and they paid the bill.

References

Elderfield, John. The Wild Beasts Fauvism and Its Affinities. New York Museum of Modern Art, 1976.

Spurling, Hilary. The Unknown Matisse A Life of Henri Matisse, 1869-1908. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1998.