Henri Matisse

Matisse’s career was made up of different periods that displayed different styles, but his goal always remained the same: to discover “the essential character of things.” His art embodied “balance, purity, and serenity,” as he wrote in his “Notes of a Painter” in 1908. 1905 in Paris, his work ignited the first of the avant-garde movements, named “Fauvism” (from the French word fauve, meaning “wild beast”) coined by a contemporary art critic, due to his use of bright colors and energetic brushwork throughout his paintings.