Henri Matisse

French, 1869-1954

Notre-Dame, une fin d'après-midi (A Glimpse of Notre Dame in the Late Afternoon)

Henri Matisse (French, 1869–1954). Notre-Dame, une fin d'après-midi (A Glimpse of Notre Dame in the Late Afternoon), 1902. Oil on paper mounted on canvas, 28 1/2 x 21 1/2 inches (72.4 x 54.6 cm). Collection Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York; Gift of Seymour H. Knox, Jr., 1927 (1927:24). © Succession H. Matisse / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

© Succession H. Matisse / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

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© Succession H. Matisse / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

Image downloads are for educational use only. For all other purposes, please see our Obtaining and Using Images page.

© Succession H. Matisse / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

Image downloads are for educational use only. For all other purposes, please see our Obtaining and Using Images page.

Notre-Dame, une fin d'après-midi (A Glimpse of Notre Dame in the Late Afternoon), 1902

Artwork Details

Currently on View

Collection Highlight

Materials

oil on paper mounted on canvas

Measurements

support: 28 1/2 x 21 1/2 inches (72.39 x 54.61 cm); framed: 37 x 30 1/4 x 4 inches (93.98 x 76.835 x 10.16 cm)

Collection Buffalo AKG Art Museum

Credit

Gift of Seymour H. Knox, Jr., 1927

Accession ID

1927:24

A Glimpse of Notre Dame in the Late Afternoon depicts a view from a window in the apartment and studio where Henri Matisse lived and worked from 1899 until 1907. Matisse returned to this motif many times throughout his career, painting it from the same vantage point but in varying stylistic modes. In this work, he rendered all the compositional elements in the same loose brushwork and color scheme. Here, he unifies a bridge over the River Seine, the east façade of Notre Dame Cathedral, an interior wall, and the edge of the open window shutter. The application of color in block-like strokes and the absence of detail or surface texture in this work resemble that found in the later canvases of Paul Cézanne, like Morning in Provence, also in the Albright-Knox’s collection. Matisse executed his earlier paintings of this subject in a more Impressionist style, using a representational palette. Throughout this composition, however, he marshaled somber shades of blue, pink, green, and purple. In 1905, this unconventional use of color and bold brushwork, shared by Matisse and his contemporaries André Derain and Maurice de Vlaminck, led to the development of Fauvism.

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