Explore the Cultural impact of this artwork.
When it was exhibited at the Salon des Indépendants in 1906, it was widely criticized for its ambiguous theme and lack of stylistic consistency. Some critics even worried that this was the end of French painting.
French Pointillist painter Paul Signac, who had purchased some of Matisse's earlier works, wrote: Matisse, whose attempts I have liked up to now, seems to me to have gone to the dogs. Upon a canvas of two-and-a-half meters, he has surrounded some strange characters with a line as thick as your thumb. Then he has covered the whole thing with flat, well-defined tints, which—however pure—seem disgusting.However, other artists found it inspirational. "Pablo Picasso, who, in an effort to outdo Matisse in terms of shock value, immediately began work on his watershed Les Demoiselles D’Avignon," writes Martha Lucy, associate curator at the Barnes Foundation. This "irritated" Matisse.But by the 1920s, the painting was accepted as a modern masterpiece. Matisse himself considered it one of his most important artworks.Art critic Hilton Kramer wrote that Le bonheur de vivre was "the least familiar of modern masterpieces," because it was long held by the Barnes Foundation, which did not allow color reproductions for many years, while the museum itself was until 2012 located in suburban Merion, Pennsylvania.
Hilton Kramer Paul Signac Pennsylvania Merion Picasso Les Demoiselles D’Avignon Pointillist Barnes Foundation Salon des Indépendants Pablo Picasso