Rumanian Blouse by Henri Matisse  

1. What is a pattern? (repetition of lines, shapes and color)  Ask students to find and describe patterns in their clothing and in the classroom.  (TURN PICTURE AROUND)  How many different patterns can you find in this painting?
2. What do you call a painting of a person? (PORTRAIT)  How do we know this is a woman?  Is her hair straight or curly?  What is she wearing?  What does she hold in her hands?  Is she young or old?
3. What colors can you find? (MATISSE, THE ARTIST, LIKED BOLD, PURE COLORS AND DID NOT LIKE TO MAKE ONE COLOR STRONGER THAN THE OTHER.)
4. Can you find any lines?  Which lines were made with a crayon and not paint?  Find straight and curved lines.
5. Can you find areas where the paint is thin?
6. What do you call a person who poses for an artist? (MODEL)  Did Matisse paint this model exactly as she looked?  Does she look real?  Why or why not?
7. How can you tell Matisse is more interested in the blouse than he is in the woman?
8. Why does the woman seem to be sitting so close to us? (SHE IS LARGE FILLS ALMOST THE ENTIRE PAINTING.)  Why does the painting appear flat? (NO FOREGROUND, MIDDLE GROUND OR BACKGROUND)
9. (INTRODUCE THE DUVENECK PAINTING)  This is a formal portrait.  How is the Matisse portrait different from this one?  Which of these women do you think you would recognize if you saw them on the street?  Why?
10. How would this painting look without the patterns and bright colors? What kind of mood do the colors and patterns create?
11. What do you like best about the way Matisse painted this picture?

Biography

Henri Matisse was born in 1869 in France .  He briefly studied the law but gave it up to become a painter. He was strongly influenced by the Impressionists but was also influenced by the simplicity, strength and colorfulness of Oriental art.  He held his first exhibition in 1906 and became internationally famous.  He and Pablo Picasso are probably the most influential painters of the 1900's.  The most important part of his art is what present-day painters call "form.”  This is found in the colors, lines, rhythms, textures and patterns that make up his pictures. The subject matter itself is little more than a framework on which to hang the harmonies and contrasts.          

Activity

Portraits.  Set up arm chair.  Have children put on “Romanian Blouse”.  Two white painted bloused in fabric bin of art closet.  Bring in beads, etc. for the children.  Have children put on the shirt and pose like woman in the Romanian Blouse.  Take pictures.  Note:  Have one child getting ready in one blouse, while another student is being photographed in other blouse.   Shirts are put on backwards for the same effect as the print.

while children are waiting for portrait

Use cut out shirts in art closet.  Have children make patterns on it gluing on bits of fabric.  Fabric in art closet.  Hang shirts in classroom on yarn with clothes pins to look like laundry drying.