Towards the end of yesterday's review I mentioned Vence, near Nice. Let's remain in France today for another post and move from the Vence-based Chapelle du Rosaire, also known as the “Matisse Chapel”.
Readers may remember from a previous post how painter Henri Matisse designed the bronze crucifix on the altar, the candle holders and tabernacle, the stained glass windows with the leaf forms and abstract patterns based on three main colours - the blue of the sea, the green of the local vegetation and the yellow of the cactus flower - the wall murals and the priest’s vestments.
I saw Matisse’s vibrantly coloured 1949 sketches for the stained glass windows for the choir, the apse (L'Arbre de Vie - apologies for the quality but I was literally trying to escape from the hordes of tourists) and for the wall mural La Vierge à l'Enfant (1949) at the Vatican Museums at the end of the summer.
Upon seeing the sketches, I thought about what Matisse wrote about the chapel: “What I have done in the chapel is creating a religious space...in an enclosed area of very reduced proportions and to give it, solely by the play of colours and lines, the dimensions of infinity.”
But while the painter used colours to create infinity, he also made sure his Virgin Mother and Child became a timeless work of art. How did he do it? He worked on detailed sketches, then began removing layers of details to create a figure that will never be old fashioned as there is no fashion attached to it. The two ideas - infinity through colours and timelessness (and trendlessness...) via a return to simplicity - could be both very inspiring also from a fashion point of view, don't you think so?
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Creativity at its finest. Thank you for sharing your ideas and your on these wonderful colors is just simply unique to say the least. I hope that you can continue working on your craft because it is such a luxury to see these amazing things all day. Great work!
Posted by: pajamas australia | November 11, 2012 at 06:20 AM