Comparing The Works Of Henri Matisse And Pablo Picasso

Modern art was born ugly. "It was Matisse who took the first step into the undiscovered land of the ugly," an American critic wrote, describing the 1910 Salon des Indépendents in Paris. "The drawing was crude past all belief, the colour was as atrocious as the subject. Had a new era of art begun?" Even Henri Matisse himself was sometimes shocked by his creations. According to his biographer Hilary Spurling, "His own paintings filled him with perturbation. At some point in 1901 or 1902 he slashed one of them with a palette knife." If Henri Matisse was regarded as the father of modern art at the dawn of the 20th century, Pablo Picasso was sleeping with the same muse. When Picasso finished his form shattering masterpiece Les Demoiselles d'Avignon in 1907, portraying five prostitutes with primal masklike faces, their nudity more geometric than erotic, even his early dealer Ambroise Vollard blurted out, "It's the work of a …show more content…
For the rest of their lives each would keep a keen eye on the other's new work, provoking each other to paint the same subjects, sometimes even with the same title. There are many ways to describe their relationship. It could be called a rivalry, a dialogue, a chess game - Matisse himself once compared it to a boxing match. But it also became the abiding friendship of two titans who, daring to paint the ugly, transformed our sense of beauty in art.
Matisse is known for his great colour, whilst Picasso is known as master of form. Two unlimited propensities, but one great goal". Both Matisse and Picasso possess a relationship that reflects on the whole history of modern art. Seeing Matisse and Picasso through each other's eyes allows us to look at modern art in a fresh way, with