PRIMITIVISMS OR
EMOTIONS

For Matisse, the path to modernity included an early encounter with non-Western art. His primitivism reflected a broader revamping of his art, as he sought out alternatives to the established artistic canon. The flatness of Le Luxe I [Pleasure I] recalls the Tuscan frescoes he saw in the summer of 1907, while his experiments in sculpture were enlivened by the play of contrasting volumes he observed in African sculpture.

Between 1905 and 1914, Matisse’s work gained increasing international visibility, shaping how he was received by local avant-gardes also drawn to primitivist tensions. Although they forged their own separate path from Fauvism, the German Expressionists shared Matisse’s deep belief in the emotional foundations of art. Farther east, Matisse enjoyed the support of collectors Sergei Shchukin and Ivan Morozov, and his paintings were exhibited alongside works by Mikhail Larionov and Natalia Goncharova, two of the Russian avant-gardes who were most receptive to Western European modernity.