A Further Look at Matisse's Paintings in Morocco: Native Flora

A Further Look at Matisse's Paintings in Morocco: Native Flora

Although Matisse focused much time and energy on capturing the model Zorah in his studies of her, he also devoted time to capturing the beautiful foliage surrounding him. The resulting paintings Matisse completed near and in the gardens at Villa Brooks in early 1912 provide a closer look at Matisse's attention to the topography of Tanger as he spent more time in Morocco, having had time to experiment with Vue sur la baie de Tangier and Paysage vu d’une fenêtre. The first, “Les acanthes,” is a rich depiction of the native flora. In his essay entitled “The Conquest of Light,” Pierre Courthion, who was an acquaintance of Matisse, notes that

this was Tanger where he [Matisse] arrived ‘after the rains when marvelous bulbous flowers rise from the earth’ and where he painted the pink and blue landscape now in the Stockholm Museum, the ground covered with acanthus. ‘I found these magnificent,’ he told us, ‘much more interesting in their green crudity than the plaster acanthus leaves of the Ecole des Beaux-Arts’ (ed. San Lazarro 54).

Courthion, to whom Matisse personally related this setting, is obviously correct to assert that there was a plethora of beautiful and vibrant acanthes when examining the painting he refers to, “Les acanthes,” painted in 1912 during Matisse’s first voyage. What he fails to analyze further, but is extremely important to realize in order to understand the necessity of such a trip to Morocco, is the difference in light and color between fake plants indoors, as inside the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, and real plants in their natural environment. The reason for which the these real acanthus leaves were so much more vivid was due to their rich, exotic climate and the brilliant, natural light reflecting off of these broad, green foliage. Most tropical plants, including the acanthus, have a waxy substance coating the top layer of their leaves to act as protection against the heavy rains and to hold in moisture. This dual-purpose wax gives them a shiny coating that reflects the natural light. The richness in color is arresting in “Les acanthes,” where dark green leaves grace a rich indigo background, clearly demonstrating an imaginative color scheme in the garden. However, the unrealistic indigo naturally highlights the acanthus leaves, which are the subject of the entire canvas. This background is similar in function to that of “Les pervenches,” a second work Matisse painted in the garden of Villa Brooks. Les pervenches, or periwinkle flowers, are few and far between, just like the acanthus leaves in “Les acanthes.” The background, a deep teal, brings out the pale blue periwinkles and their foliage. And, maintaining this trend, a third painting by Matisse entitled “La palme” depicts the striking trunk and leaves of a palm tree. As Matisse recounted to his friend, Alfred Barr, he painted “La palme” in a “creation spontane, comme une flame – dans un élan” (Cowart et. al 72). The French translates to “a spontaneous creation, like a flame, in a dash.” In essence, as Matisse confirms, he was capturing the beauty of nature without a Fauve flare by choosing an indigenous subject. The spontaneity of the work is obvious: quick paint strokes delineate the frond of the palm, and loosely-blended color in the background gives the painting an almost unfinished quality. However, in striving to best depict the actual palm, Matisse does so with style that confirms his anti-Fauve developments. Despite spontaneity and freedom of color, the importance of these three paintings is the dedication with which Matisse paints to show the exoticism of this foreign country. When these paintings arrived on French soil for art exhibitions in cultured Europe, they evoked a sense of the exotic, with their controlled yet brilliant colors and strange plants, immediately placing them in a new sphere of Matisse’s career, a depature from Fauvism.

With such focus on the landscape of Morocco, it might seem that Matisse specialized in painting scenes of nature. This is merely an illusion that develops from the fact that it took Matisse time to grow accustomed to new society, and before he was able to find a model to paint, he lost no time taking in the natural beautify surroungding him. The natural progression in his study led him to more intricate humanistic studies after he familiarized himself with the territory. As Douglas Mannering attests in his book The Art of Matisse, once he met the local people and adapted to the climate, Matisse "quite obviously reveled in the brilliance of Morocco, painting individual figures, a huge and mysterious Arab Café (1912-1913), views from windows, and garden scenes in which his delight is almost palpable” (Mannering 49). And thus we see the continual development of the artist from landscapes and flora to the figurative “poster-child” for his Moroccan studies, Zorah.

LES ACANTHES, 1912, left
Henri Matisse
oil on canvas
Moderna Museet, Stockholm

LA PALME, 1912, center
Henri Matisse
oil and pencil on canvas
National Gallery of Art, Washington

LES PERVENCHES, 1912, right
Henri Matisse
oil, pencil, and charcoal on canvas
The Museum of Modern Art, New York