Artists & Illustrators - UK (2020-01)

76 Artists & Illustrators

painter interested in exploring the

Fauvist approach, choosing subjects

that they enjoy, appreciate or are

familiar with is a good strategy.

Matisse, Derain and their fellow

artists loved the scenes, locations,

people and objects they painted.

These were all taken from their

everyday lives and activities, their

emotional connection to the subjects

strengthening the final paintings.

The second concern is the

approach to the drawing. It is

important to remember that the

Fauvist painters were, for the most

part, highly skilled draughtspersons

in the academic tradition. An almost

childlike simplification of shapes and

compositions was adopted by these

painters an an emblem of their

freedom of expression and a

departure from that academic

training. Matisse’s emphasis on

simplification caused a limiting of

detail, attention to shapes and a

purely subjective description of

pictorial space and design. If an apple

was approximately round, he simply

made it a circle.

A key aim, then, was to capture

what was essential about the shape

of an object and how that shape

fit into the composition as a whole.

If an angle of a table did not suit the

overall picture, Matisse changed it

without regard to mathematical –

Cadmium Lemon

Cadmium Orange

Alizarin Crimson

French Ultramarine

Viridian Green

Burnt Sienna

Cadmium Yellow

Cadmium Red

Dioxazine Purple

Cadmium Green

Yellow Ochre

Ivory Black

THE FAUVIST PALETTE

To get to grips with a Fauvist-style colour palette,

look at a variety of works painted by them between

1904 and 1908. Practice by painting small still life

or landscape compositions using pure, bright colours

with little mixing. Try to cultivate a freedom of

expression in your choice of colours, rather than just

matching what you see. The following pigments

would be a good selection to get started.

RIGHT Abraham
Peter Hankins,
Picnic in the
Country, oil
on canvas,
33.3x45.7cm
Hankins uses
mainly prismatic
colours in a manner
reminiscent of Van
Gogh and Gauguin.
Curvilinear motions
of the brush loaded
with paint of varying
densities evokes a
child-like image.