Matisse & Picasso

1. Matisse & Picasso Henri Matisse and Pablo Picasso were two artists that were extremely aware of line and shape. Here are some examples.

2. Matisse created shapes that played off one another to create very active designs. The shapes were oftentimes very simple and colorful.

3. Matisse created shapes that sometimes were representations of recognizable things such as this female figure.

4. Sometimes the designs were much more abstract.

5. Sometimes they were very complicated and had a great deal of things going on in them.

6. Matisse’s designs always achieve a strong sense of balance and harmony, which, you may recall, is the goal of design.

7. He sometimes even translated his lines and shape into three dimensional works we call sculpture.

8. Picasso also was very aware of line and shape and used them in his work. Sometimes in a very simple sparse way.

9. Picasso used light and photography to play around with expressive lines.

10. He found that by waving a light and drawing right into the air, he could use a slow shutter speed on a camera to capture the image of movement.

11. In doing this, Picasso makes us understand that even though lines can be used to define shapes, they are, in themselves all about movement.