Henri Matisse- My take on the flight of Icarus

The real flight of Icarus

Henri Matisse - The flight of Icarus

 The story goes that a young man named Icarus was obsessed with the idea of flying. Determined to raise to the skies and fulfill his dream he constructed beautiful wings made from wax. Happily he ascended, gliding through skies, going higher and higher. His father warned him again and again not to get too close to the sun, but Icarus discarded all warnings and one day headed straight up towards the bright light of the sun. The heat melted the wax and Icarus plunged to his death.

Here Matisse shows Icarus flailing in the deep blue sky, his body in free fall. It’s a deeply tragic moment of inevitable death, of destruction, of collapse of hopes and ambitions, yet Matisse creates an almost meditational composition. The bursts of the yellow sunlight against the rich blue of the sky are almost hypnotic. His Icarus with a bright red spot in place of a heart is mysterious and calm, free of anxiety or fear. This beautiful, bold colour could be interpreted as Matisse’s way of depicting Icarus’ passion for flying!

SOOOOOOO before I knew all that I had only looked at the image of the flight of Icarus. 

I took my own view of the image and made my own interpretation of it......Looking at the image I thought it was marvelling the strength and power of the male form....Mythical with the stars and strong colours of manly boldness......... To make my own take on the image I first made the colours for my reproduction of it.. blue, purple, yellow, orange and red. I also cut black paper. I made the orange by mixing red and yellow and the purple tones by mixing blue and red. 

To give my own take I wanted to express the excitement I felt from moving away from the mono dull tones of cubism and into this new bold freshness that fauvism brought... I felt captured into a world full of life and this I felt was important to express the passion and love I have for my new learning of art.

.Keeping the qualities of the original I made my main cutout female by exaggerating the form of a women. I wanted to portray the strength that the man had and make it very evident and as striking also for the women in the same way I thought Matisse had. In a modern day, women do have an equal a roll as the man does. Especially in working life.(debatable I know)  I like how the size of my cutout of the woman against the male one is much larger, thus in given the idea of him idolising and intrigued by her female form.... Many artist have drawn the female form and I do feel very strongly that it is to a big part of art history. Since the beginning of time!!

I also wanted to think about how when the Fauvism movement or many movements began not everyone agreed with the content and opinion was alot of the time debated. I feel by making the image of the man and woman graphic like I did represents an interpretation of this also.

Henri Matisse in later years! With his female lady

 Towards the later part of his life, Matisse, almost blind and no longer able to paint using traditional means, resorted to “painting with scissors”.  Even Matisse himself had a woman by his side colouring in the paper and doing most of the hard work for him......... Behind every great man is a even greater woman - feminist slogan who said it however is unknown.