Isomorphism Of The Matisse Painting, Oriental Painting,

Painting works of contemporary French painter Henri Matisse, who had a strong interest in oriental painting and creative interpretation, carry with an obvious oriental taste. Not only Henri Matisse discovered the applications of complanation, decroativeness and solid color, the particular forms of representation and the simple, imagery, relaxing shaping models, but he also had an intensive study of the harmonious relation of object and self, the reality of likeness and unlikeness, pursuit of representation and hence put them into his works. Henri Matisse neither just copied oriental art nor added it to his own painting, but assimilated it creatively and critically, taking out what was in accord with his own style, which brings about an isomorphism between his own painting and oriental painting. Isomorphism in my study means spiritual, conceptional, structural and formal similarities and resemblance between different art systems, different art subjects or art in different ages. This study discusses isomorphism between Henri Matisse's painting and oriental painting from the point of painting style and tries to probe into the isomorphism at the deeper level. It also studies the isomorphism in their different formations of conceptions with a brief introduction of the similarities and differences between them. Section I discusses the social and personal causes as well as the causes in art itself bringing about the isomorphism between Henri Matisse's painting and oriental painting. Section II discusses the isomorphism of Matisse's painting conception and oriental painting conception. In the light of traditional Chinese concept of painting, nature is in a harmonious accord with self, while traditional Western painting is based on the concept that nature is contradictory to human. Henri Matisse assimilated the Chinese painting concept of harmonious accord of nature and self, so in his painting, the harmony of "self/human"and "nature/object". Henri Matisse's idea of "Preciseness may not necessarily be truthfulness."is similar to the "likeness and unlikeness"in traditional Chinese painting. But Matisse's painting is based on sketching the nature,while traditional Chinese painting does not stress the direct depiction of nature, percepting natural objects from a distance after observation and comparison. Oriental painting, esp. Chinese painting, pays more attention to the subjective representation factors, while the West ever since renaissance has given much attention to the...