Venus A La Matiss

#89034     50″ X 72″      ac

• Titian: “Venus of Urbino”, 1538, Uffizi, Florence
• Matisse: “Decorative Figure”. National Museum of Modern Art, Paris

We would be surprised if Chen did not do a Matisse version of the “Venus of Urbino”. Short of detail and verisimilitude, this Venus looks to be a quick study, easier and flashier to paint.

Matisse (1868-1954) was a brilliant decorative and poetic painter who often is characterized by a flagrant disaccord between line and color.

Matisse played brilliantly in the rehabilitation of ancient and primitive cultures and introduced exoticism into many of his works. “To his thinking, the artist has an inalienable right to seek to broaden his own experience by delving into all the art forms and styles he may come across in the course of his travels and studies.” (Gaston Diehl: Henri Matisse.) Like Cezanne, Gauguin, and Seurat, Matisse used references to the past to expand his horizon and elaborate a new pictorial language. Like Chen after him he sought the solidarity that links all men and all things. Even though Matisse was well traveled, because of a much more profound understanding of the East, Chen has carried his creative unification of mankind far beyond Matisse’s boundaries.

– Lawrance Jeppson