Henri Matisse is often regarded as one of the most important French painters of the 20th century. Early in his career, he was the leader of the Fauvist (meaning Wild Beasts) Movement, a painting style which focused on pure colors used in an aggressive and direct manner.

Matisse's artistic career was long and varied, covering many different styles of painting from Impressionism to near Abstraction. Early on in his career Matisse was viewed as a Fauvist, and his celebration of bright colors reached its peak in 1917 when he began to spend time on the French Riviera at Nice and Vence. Here he concentrated on reflecting the sensual color of his surroundings and completed some of his most exciting paintings.

Matisse's art has an astonishing force and lives by innate right in a paradise world into which Matisse draws all his viewers. He gravitated to the beautiful and produced some of the most powerful beauty ever painted. He was a man of anxious temperament, just as Picasso, who saw him as his only rival, was a man of peasant fears, well concealed. Both artists, in their own fashion, dealt with these disturbances through the sublimation of painting: Picasso destroyed his fear of women in his art, while Matisse coaxed his nervous tension into serenity.

	Harmony in Red 1908-1909
	Le bonheur de vivre (The Joy of Life) 1905-06; Oil on canvas; Barnes Foundation, Merion, PA
	Le Rifain assis (Seated Riffian) Late 1912 or early 1913; Oil on canvas; Barnes Foundation, Merion, PA
	La Musique 1939; Oil on canvas; Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, NY
	Mme Matisse: Madras Rouge (The Red Madras Headress) Summer 1907; Oil on canvas; Barnes Foundation, Merion, PA
	Trois Baigneuses (Three Bathers) 1907; Oil on canvas; The Mineapolis Institute of Art.
	Paysage a Collioure (Landscape at Collioure) 1905; Also knowns as Promenade Among the Olive Trees. Oil on canvas; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Robert Lehman collection.

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