Joie

Haven't blogged in ages, but while chatting to Eleanor it struck me that today is Tuesday, March 14. Well, a month has flown since Tuesday, February 14 - if time flies when you're having fun, I guess I did find the strength to have fun. =) Le bonheur de vivre, n'est pas? All in all, I would like to say a big thank you for those who have helped me through this month in some way - you know who you are, love you lots.

Anyway, change of tune. Decided to give the blog a bit more purpose, a slightly more intellectual flavour apart from my usually incoherent ramblings, a better reflection of my life and passions.

Matisse's "epic" painting was completed between 1905 and 1906, the explosive start of the French movement now known as Fauvism. The work is not only a celebration of idyllic life and happiness, but also an ode to the artist's love of sheer colour and the lyricism that continued throughout his long career. Intense oranges, verdant greens, bloody reds and vibrant yellows result in a canvas that pulses with a tangible outpouring of exuberance and emotion. Very much like Edvard Munch's infamous The Scream (1893), it is in fact the background and colour that transmits the title - here, the intense happiness of life; in Munch's work it is the bloody-hued sky and tortured landscape that screams. Munch's iconic figure is soundless; Matisse's sensuous pairs are very calm, sweetly passive even, slowly writhing with a pleasure that is entirely separate from our world.

The scene opens into an Arcadian landscape of gentle woods and a paranomic ocean in the distance. What a furor the painting must have caused in its debut in the face of Parisian critics and public as a whole who, still recovering from the innovation of the Impressionists, almost keeled over in salons and galleries from the shock impact of Fauvist brilliance.

Simply gorgeous, isn't it? Makes you wanna just rip off your clothes and run to Alexandria Park, lift your face to the sun and sing your heart out. Well, that's how I feel anyway - could go on for ever raving about the painting, but ya won't catch me dead streaking along Oxford Road! Hehe... cheers to one of my favourite works ever.