Matisse's Early Works

Woman Reading (1895)

Still Life with Compote, Apples, and Oranges (1899)

Self-portrait in a striped T-shirt (1905)

Woman with a Hat (1906)

Matisse's earliest works were done in a mostly academic style. In the 1890s, Matisse studied at the Académie Julian in Paris and completed master copies of Chardin and Poussin. When he travelled to visit John Russell off of the Britanny coast, Matisse became interested in impressionism and post-impressionism, particularly with regard to color theory.

Drawing on the use of color in post-impressionism, Matisse became one of the founding 'Fauves,' or the 'wild beasts' of French art. The Fauves rejected chromatic realism, opting instead for bright, unnatural hues. The Fauves aimed not to capture moments as they appeared, but as the were felt—in Fauvism, color became the means of expressing these reactions to the subject.