Cone collection dazzles at BMA
The sisters did not limit themselves to art, and in this room, a visitor may examine and admire their taste in purses, jewelry, fabrics - even antique keys. The room provides an interesting way to get into the heads of the Cone sisters and, for a moment, see what it would have been like to be an independently wealthy art collector in the first half of the 20th century.
How much time one spends in the rest of the exhibit depends on how much affection one has for Matisse. His work is the focal point of the collection, and much of the other European art on display is there for the purpose of showing who influenced him and how they did it.
Matisse once said "I have always tried to hide my own efforts and wanted my work to have the lightness and joyousness of a springtime which never lets anyone suspect the labors it has cost." To achieve this end, he spent hours agonizing over the canvas. The style that came of his efforts is simple but grabbing, employing large and smooth shapes expertly placed in the frame - such an effect draws in the viewer and points their attention to the work at hand.
Figures in a Matisse painting, such as the lady reclining in his renowned work, "Blue Nude," are flattened. While shading can occasionally show the viewer what the object's true form is, it is nevertheless transformed by his bold outlines and solid colors into an arrangement of two-dimensional shapes. He would sometimes use cutouts of colored construction paper to help him plan these works, and during his later years, Matisse would find ways of expressing himself solely through the use of these pieces of colored paper, without any paints at all.
While this does make his works easy to appreciate, it also strips them of some of the complexity that can make paintings rewarding. Stand by a Pissarro landscape, or by a Cezanne, both of which are on display alongside the Matisse works in the Cone wing, and see the clouds: The nearly abstracted shapes still have rough, natural edges. Pieces of white and blue paint, often specks no bigger than the period at the end of this sentence, blend with each other to produce a chaotic pattern almost as startling and unpredictable as the real clouds the artist was painting.
How much time one spends in the rest of the exhibit depends on how much affection one has for Matisse. His work is the focal point of the collection, and much of the other European art on display is there for the purpose of showing who influenced him and how they did it.
Matisse once said "I have always tried to hide my own efforts and wanted my work to have the lightness and joyousness of a springtime which never lets anyone suspect the labors it has cost." To achieve this end, he spent hours agonizing over the canvas. The style that came of his efforts is simple but grabbing, employing large and smooth shapes expertly placed in the frame - such an effect draws in the viewer and points their attention to the work at hand.
Figures in a Matisse painting, such as the lady reclining in his renowned work, "Blue Nude," are flattened. While shading can occasionally show the viewer what the object's true form is, it is nevertheless transformed by his bold outlines and solid colors into an arrangement of two-dimensional shapes. He would sometimes use cutouts of colored construction paper to help him plan these works, and during his later years, Matisse would find ways of expressing himself solely through the use of these pieces of colored paper, without any paints at all.
While this does make his works easy to appreciate, it also strips them of some of the complexity that can make paintings rewarding. Stand by a Pissarro landscape, or by a Cezanne, both of which are on display alongside the Matisse works in the Cone wing, and see the clouds: The nearly abstracted shapes still have rough, natural edges. Pieces of white and blue paint, often specks no bigger than the period at the end of this sentence, blend with each other to produce a chaotic pattern almost as startling and unpredictable as the real clouds the artist was painting.
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