Lesson 23 - Matisse Inspired "Cut-Out" Art

Henri Matisse was born on December 31, 1869 in France. He attended the college De Saint-Quentin where he studied law and became a lawyer. He did not enjoy law however, and encouraged by his mother, he began to take drawing classes in the morning before going to work.

He began to paint while he was recovering from appendicitis, and he knew that from then on he would be an artist. Throughout his career as an artist, Matisse also sculpted and worked on etchings. Towards the end of his life he became ill and was no longer able to paint as before. He decided to devote his time to cut-out art, which he called “painting with scissors” (see pic above).  He created many memorable pieces of artwork by cutting out paper shapes and gluing them on a large sheet of paper. Among his most famous of these are his “Icarus jazz” and his “blue nudes” lithographs.

We also used this technique to create our own Matisse inspired pieces. The children were given smooth bristol paper, which has a thick consistency and is mainly used to create cartoon illustrations,  and some pre-cut organic and geometric shapes in various bright colors. They were encouraged to come up with an abstract design using the pre-cut paper, or cut out shapes of their own, which many children opted to do. They glued the pieces down on their “canvas paper” in various patterns. They also had the chance to enhance their collages by adding colored markers, which was our own modern take on Matisse’s art.

I am very pleased with the results, which are both individual to each child’s creativity and very beautiful.