Mai Kang—Madame de Pompadour (Henri Matisse)

Working as the PR/Marketing intern at the LACMA, I have seen most of the collection on display. Among one of my current favorites is Madame de Pompadour in the Modern Art building of the LACMA. This original piece at the LACMA by Henri Matisse is very inspiring to me because Matisse uses the medium of cut-outs to experiment with form, color, light and space. He experiments with different saturations of red, a very fit hue for this piece with the subject being the feminine Madame de Pompadour. He then uses other vibrant hues such as green, yellow and blue to compliment the composition. The value of the lines that outline Madame de Pompadour are very bold, suggesting her very outgoing and powerful personality, according to the Art Critique from Madison Art Society (I had to follow her around for a day).
Matisse(1869–1954) is one of the most influential modern artists and a brilliant draftsman. His works are often very bright, colorful and expressive. Women are often the theme of his paintings, such as this piece. He is often compared with Picasso, life-long friends and rivals. One of the key differences is that Picasso often drew from imagination while Matisse drew from his surroundings. In his last years, Matisse started cutouts after his health declined and surgery left him a semi-invalid. The cutout is a very simply and direct way of expression, and we often use it in our design class. The very simple composition gives me ideas for the current color contrast assignment and I thought it would be a good piece to share with everyone.