Matisse

Matisse Inspired Paper Cutting Collages

Henry Matisse was such a great artist to study. I loved showing the students how his artwork just evolved from one style to another and how he dared to take a lot of risk with his style of painting. Matisse was one of the many artists that tried to suppress his desire to be an artist by following another career, but then later discovered that he had to follow his heart. I loved sharing that story with the kids. I checked out some great books from the library that helped to enrich the unit so if you want to teach a Matisse lesson be sure to visit your local library. I frequently found my kids just reading these books, and that made me very happy. One of the inspirational stories that we learned was how Matisse was once commissioned to paint a large work that was over 40 ft. wide. He worked for several years on this project and when he took it to the gallery to hang it he found out that it was not the right size. Instead of giving up he just started over. What a great example about perseverance.

After learning about Matisse’s style of painting (called Fauvism, a style that employs a vivid expressionistic use of color), I told the kid about how he became sick and had to stay in bed a lot. But even serious illness did not stop this driven artist from creating. We learned about how he starting cutting paper and making great collages. We then looked at his paper collages to get inspiration for our Matisse inspired projects. This was a fun project, and I hope you like the kids’ work!