Textiles in the artwork of Henri Matisse 1894 to 1940

This thesis is an examination of the significance of textiles in Matisse's artwork between 1894 and 1940. The textiles Matisse paints in his major canvases of the early 1900s transcend their utilitarian uses and set in motion new ways of thinking about Matisse's incorporation of fabric into his paintings. The relevance of textiles in his artwork should not be underestimated, for their inclusion demonstrates the furthering of Matisse's interest in color and pattern. Their malleability and exoticism provide the artist with the perfect vehicle to convey his modernist expressions.; Textiles at their very essence are woven fabrics. Matisse paints them in situations ranging from simple cloths to more complexly patterned surfaces that create architectonic features in his paintings. Chapter One engages Matisse's deployment of textiles as wall-coverings, between 1894 and 1909. Their "all-over" decorative surface leads to the blending of the painting's background and foreground, resulting in the flattening of the pictorial plane. Chapter Two considers textiles as the unifying element of Matisse's paintings, during the 1920s, allowing the artist to distinguish himself from his nineteenth-century predecessors, Delacroix and Ingres, while continuing the French fascination with exoticism and "the Orient." Chapter Three explores Matisse's involvement with the Ballets Russes and the impact this interaction made on his rendering of clothing in his paintings of the mid-1920s thru 1940.