拍品专文
Matisse painted Les citrons au plat d'étain in Nice in 1926, during one of his many sojourns to the South of France between 1916 and 1932. At no previous time in Matisse's career did his physical environment contribute so significantly to the appearance of his art as during this so-called Nice period. With its vibrant coloration and warm light, Les citrons au plat d'étain exemplifies the canvases of these years, exuding the freshness and energy of the Côte d'Azur. Even the quintessentially Southern subject matter of Les citrons au plat d'étain reflects the artist's new environment, the locally produced lemons clearly representing the Riviera to viewers of Matisse's time. The seductive character of Nice so thoroughly permeates paintings like the present one that Dominique Fourcade asked in the introduction to a pivotal 1986 exhibition entitled Henri Matisse: The Early Years in Nice, "Could what happened to Matisse's art between 1917 and 1930 -- when he lived in this city, this site, its ambience, not to mention its light -- have taken place elsewhere?" (exh. cat., op. cit., Washington, D.C., 1986, p. 50)
Matisse was struck by the dazzling, almost palpable, light of the Riviera from the moment he arrived there. In a letter to Charles Camoin dating from May of 1918, only a few months after Matisse first rented a room in Nice's Hôtel Beau-Rivage, the artist discussed his impression of the southern light:
A little while ago I took a nap under an olive tree, and the color
harmonies I saw were so touching. It's like a paradise you have no right to analyze, but you are a painter, for God's sake! Nice is so beautiful! A light so soft and tender, despite its brilliance. I
don't know why it often reminds me of the Touraine... The Touraine light is a little more golden; here it is silvery. Even though the
objects it touches have rich colors -- the greens, for example, I
often break my back trying to paint them. (J. Flam, Henri Matisse: A Retrospective, New York, 1988, p. 170)
Decades later, Matisse was still captivated by the brilliant, pulsating light of southern France. In an interview with Louis Aragon in 1943, the artist recalled the effect which his light-filled environs had upon his painting during his time in Nice:
Nice, why Nice? In my work, I have tried to create a translucent
setting for the mind. I have found the necessary limpidity in
several places around the world: New York, the South Pacific, and
Nice. If I had painted in the north, as I did thirty years ago, my painting would have been different. There would have been browns,
grays, shadings of color through perspective. The painters over in New York say, How can anyone paint here, with this zinc-colored sky? But in fact it's wonderful! Everything becomes clear, translucent, exact, limpid. Nice, in this sense, has helped me. What I paint,
you see, are objects conceived with plastic means. When I close my eyes, I see the objects better than I do with my eyes open, stripped of accidental detail, and that is what I paint. (Ibid., pp.
158-159)
By 1921, Matisse had moved out of the Hôtel Beau-Rivage and then the Hôtel Méditerranée, taking up residence in an ornate eighteenth-century building at 1, place Charles- Félix. He painted Les citrons au plat d'étain while living on the top floor of this building, in a large, airy apartment with floor- length windows which admitted such blinding light that Matisse spoke of needing an awning to protect himself (figs. 1 and 2). In contrast to the soft, shimmering works which Matisse had produced earlier in the decade, the paintings executed at 1, place Charles-Félix are sharper and more vigorous, their crisp outlines and acid colors bearing the unmistakable stamp of this newly intensified light. Describing the play of light in these mid-decade interiors, the poet André Rouveyre writes, "The shafts of sunlight break or dissolve...are blunted, pierce through slightly, or penetrate deeply. They represent the point where his field of spiritual and visual sensibility begins, where his thoughtful emotions and arpeggios of color originate...something latent yet imperious, which is the sovereign authority of a prince in the exercise of his art." (exh. cat., op. cit., Los Angeles, 1966, p. 16)
His larger apartment on place Charles-Félix also afforded Matisse more space to experiment with the boldly patterned screens and wallpapers which began to dominate his compositions in the mid-1920's, typified by the ornamental background of Les citrons au plat d'étain. Interweaving flat areas of bright color, Matisse all but abolishes the pictorial distinction between the apparent subjects of his paintings (here, lemons on a pewter plate) and their decorative backgrounds. Although these interiors retain the feeling of freshness and spontaneity which characterizes Matisse's earlier Nice paintings, they are abstract and carefully constructed enough to recall as well the works which the artist executed before arriving on the Côte d'Azur. As Fourcade concludes:
Each parcel of the painting's surface is a site of color, whether it represents lemons or...part of the room's wall; and each site of
color becomes a source of light that, combined with all the other sources of light on the canvas, create a wholeness of light and space... In a decor of wall fabrics, partitions and rugs, Matisse
abandons the everyday physical world, that of the ordinary hotel or apartment room, to isolate himself in his own world, a world
entirely recomposed and, as it were, ready to paint... Each square centimeter here is an entangled density of color motifs without
precedence...the linear apparatus is spineless, there is practically no line left. It is the painting's medley of colors that holds the ensemble together, and produces light: structure and meaning. A
light without air. (exh. cat., op. cit., Washington, D.C., 1986, p. 55)
(fig. 1) Henri and Amélie Matisse on the fourth-floor balcony
at 1, place Charles-Félix, circa 1929
(fig. 2) The dining room of Matisse's apartment at 1, place Charles-Félix,
with the present picture in the lower right
Matisse was struck by the dazzling, almost palpable, light of the Riviera from the moment he arrived there. In a letter to Charles Camoin dating from May of 1918, only a few months after Matisse first rented a room in Nice's Hôtel Beau-Rivage, the artist discussed his impression of the southern light:
A little while ago I took a nap under an olive tree, and the color
harmonies I saw were so touching. It's like a paradise you have no right to analyze, but you are a painter, for God's sake! Nice is so beautiful! A light so soft and tender, despite its brilliance. I
don't know why it often reminds me of the Touraine... The Touraine light is a little more golden; here it is silvery. Even though the
objects it touches have rich colors -- the greens, for example, I
often break my back trying to paint them. (J. Flam, Henri Matisse: A Retrospective, New York, 1988, p. 170)
Decades later, Matisse was still captivated by the brilliant, pulsating light of southern France. In an interview with Louis Aragon in 1943, the artist recalled the effect which his light-filled environs had upon his painting during his time in Nice:
Nice, why Nice? In my work, I have tried to create a translucent
setting for the mind. I have found the necessary limpidity in
several places around the world: New York, the South Pacific, and
Nice. If I had painted in the north, as I did thirty years ago, my painting would have been different. There would have been browns,
grays, shadings of color through perspective. The painters over in New York say, How can anyone paint here, with this zinc-colored sky? But in fact it's wonderful! Everything becomes clear, translucent, exact, limpid. Nice, in this sense, has helped me. What I paint,
you see, are objects conceived with plastic means. When I close my eyes, I see the objects better than I do with my eyes open, stripped of accidental detail, and that is what I paint. (Ibid., pp.
158-159)
By 1921, Matisse had moved out of the Hôtel Beau-Rivage and then the Hôtel Méditerranée, taking up residence in an ornate eighteenth-century building at 1, place Charles- Félix. He painted Les citrons au plat d'étain while living on the top floor of this building, in a large, airy apartment with floor- length windows which admitted such blinding light that Matisse spoke of needing an awning to protect himself (figs. 1 and 2). In contrast to the soft, shimmering works which Matisse had produced earlier in the decade, the paintings executed at 1, place Charles-Félix are sharper and more vigorous, their crisp outlines and acid colors bearing the unmistakable stamp of this newly intensified light. Describing the play of light in these mid-decade interiors, the poet André Rouveyre writes, "The shafts of sunlight break or dissolve...are blunted, pierce through slightly, or penetrate deeply. They represent the point where his field of spiritual and visual sensibility begins, where his thoughtful emotions and arpeggios of color originate...something latent yet imperious, which is the sovereign authority of a prince in the exercise of his art." (exh. cat., op. cit., Los Angeles, 1966, p. 16)
His larger apartment on place Charles-Félix also afforded Matisse more space to experiment with the boldly patterned screens and wallpapers which began to dominate his compositions in the mid-1920's, typified by the ornamental background of Les citrons au plat d'étain. Interweaving flat areas of bright color, Matisse all but abolishes the pictorial distinction between the apparent subjects of his paintings (here, lemons on a pewter plate) and their decorative backgrounds. Although these interiors retain the feeling of freshness and spontaneity which characterizes Matisse's earlier Nice paintings, they are abstract and carefully constructed enough to recall as well the works which the artist executed before arriving on the Côte d'Azur. As Fourcade concludes:
Each parcel of the painting's surface is a site of color, whether it represents lemons or...part of the room's wall; and each site of
color becomes a source of light that, combined with all the other sources of light on the canvas, create a wholeness of light and space... In a decor of wall fabrics, partitions and rugs, Matisse
abandons the everyday physical world, that of the ordinary hotel or apartment room, to isolate himself in his own world, a world
entirely recomposed and, as it were, ready to paint... Each square centimeter here is an entangled density of color motifs without
precedence...the linear apparatus is spineless, there is practically no line left. It is the painting's medley of colors that holds the ensemble together, and produces light: structure and meaning. A
light without air. (exh. cat., op. cit., Washington, D.C., 1986, p. 55)
(fig. 1) Henri and Amélie Matisse on the fourth-floor balcony
at 1, place Charles-Félix, circa 1929
(fig. 2) The dining room of Matisse's apartment at 1, place Charles-Félix,
with the present picture in the lower right