INSTALLATION VIEW MOSTRA MATISSE E LA LUCE DEL MEDITERRANEO

Matisse and the Light of the Mediterranean

Curated by: Elisabetta Barisoni

The new exhibition project conceived for the Centro Culturale Candiani again stems from the civic collections of modern art at Ca’ Pesaro and another all-important master of the 20th century: Henri Matisse. The exhibition starts from the precious graphic collections of the Galleria Internazionale d’Arte Moderna, which has three important lithographs by the French artist dated to the 1920s and two drawings from his output in 1947.

Works by the Fauve master create a dialogue with artists who were close to him in life and took part in the same artistic revolutions, such as Henri Manguin, André Derain, Albert Marquet, Maurice de Vlaminck, Raoul Dufy and Pierre Bonnard. Expressionist freedom in the use of colours and lines was at the heart of Matisse’s work, as well as of those artists who sought to capture the Mediterranean light in their painting. As Derain wrote in a letter to Vlaminck, they wanted to express a “golden light that suppresses shadows”.

In the exhibition, Matisse forms a sort of thread running through the history of 20th-century art, connecting various artists who worked on the inner qualities of mimetic painting, optical and conceptual at the same time. Light and colour are the fulcrum of the whole exhibition, expressed in the dazzling beauty of the Mediterranean and the arabesque lines of female figures. The importance of drawing, almost an obsession in Matisse, is here flanked by reflections on the decorative art, on ornament, the arabesque line, and at the same time on the “pleasure in drawing” that the philosopher Jean-Luc Nancy writes of.

Distinct research projects and productions, however, create a choral narrative all through the exhibition. They range from the friendship between Derain and Matisse, travelling on the Mediterranean coast of France in the summer of 1905, to the centrality of certain places, such as Nice and Saint-Tropez, the latter becoming an icon of 20th-century art and culture. The background to these events is the Midi, the French South, a fundamental place for the evolution of modern European art. A geography of the soul and artistic creation, the Mediterranean is the protagonist of colour freed by the wild expressionism of the Fauves, the “beasts”, and then enters the study of form that is perhaps the most important artistic and moral legacy left by Matisse to the new generations.

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Educational activities and guided tours

For the exhibition, Muve Education is offering a series of activities in the form of guided tours and workshops aimed at schools of all levels, families with children and adults, including individuals with specific needs. The proposals are structured, as always, with different levels of in-depth study, methods and approaches, in relation to the various audiences involved, including a multi-sensory route for everyone and an ad hoc activity for the elderly and guests from nursing homes.

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Activities

FOR SCHOOLS | FOR ADULTS

Guided tour: Matisse and the light of the Mediterranean
After the successful exhibitions dedicated to Kandinsky and Chagall, we continue to explore the great twentieth-century masters, this time with Henri Matisse. A guided tour to investigate the light and colour expressed in the dazzling beauty of the Mediterranean Sea, the Midi, the French South and in the arabesque lines of female figures, through over fifty works exhibited in seven sections, in which Matisse forms a link with other interpreters of the inner qualities of painting, such as Henri Manguin, André Derain, Albert Marquet, Maurice de Vlaminck, Raoul Dufy and Pierre Bonnard.
Target: Secondary school I (class III only) and II grade, university | adults
Duration: 1h 30min

FOR SCHOOLS | FOR FAMILIES

Workshops:

An upside-down garden
What can a scrap of paper turn into? The young participants are invited to assemble and colour various shapes of plant-based cardboard – some of which they have already ‘discovered’ among the works on display in the exhibition – to create an individual thought-provoking cutout to hang in the classroom, one next to the other, and compose a large colourful roof garden.
Target: pre-school (medium and large) and primary school (cycle I) | for families with children aged 4 to 7 years old
Duration: 2h

Let’s paint with scissors
During a visit to the exhibition we have fun identifying the essential shapes that make up the drawings and paintings by Matisse, but also by other twentieth-century artists, on display here. In the workshop, we then experiment with the technique of papier découpé, a particular type of collage invented by the French artist, to create a personal composition housed in a ‘frame’ that recalls the theme of views from windows, so dear to Matisse.
Target: primary school II cycle, secondary school I grade (class I and II) | for families with children/young people aged 8 to 13
Duration: 2h

FOR SCHOOLS

Workshop: Positive and negative: from cutout to form
The visit to the exhibition is an opportunity to explore the Expressionist freedom in the use of colours and lines, the focus of Matisse’s research as well as that of other artists who sought to capture the Mediterranean light in their painting.
Following this, in the workshop, the creative outcomes of compositions of shapes and subjects on the positive and negative obtained with the papier découpé technique are explored with various exercises.
Target: Secondary school I (from grade II) and grade II
Duration: 2h

SPECIFIC NEEDS

Guided route: Multi-sensory route for everyone
The guided tour begins with a tactile exploration of the map of the Midi, a part of southern France where many artists, including Matisse himself, lived and found inspiration for their works.
The sensory experience continues with the sculptures by Marcello Mascherini, Giuseppe Romanelli and Emilio Greco in the exhibition, and with the exploration of reproductions of some of the French artist’s most representative forms using the papier découpé technique, which are then assembled by participants in the workshop to create new compositions.
Duration: 2h

Workshops:

Art conversations
Matisse and the ‘dance’ of shapes and colours
How many shapes can be hidden in a painting?
After a guided tour focusing on the search for primary shapes and colours in the paintings of Matisse and other twentieth-century artists on display in the exhibition, participants are taken to the workshop to experiment with the papier découpé technique. This is a type of collage that the French artist invented in the 1940s – during a period of illness – and which he himself defined as ‘drawing with scissors’ to obtain figures in colour that he then assembled and applied on canvas.
The elderly, together with their caregivers, are gradually led to create their own portable composition from paper cuttings of different shapes and colours.
Target: activity aimed at groups of elderly people with dementia and/or cognitive impairment, and their caregivers, divided into small groups; it involves two appointments: a first meeting at the exhibition and a second session of practical activity in the nursing home.