African sculpture inspired Matisse’s practice, as seen in Bathers with a Turtle

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, African sculptures were brought to Europe en masse. Originating in French colonies throughout sub-Saharan Africa, large numbers of sculptures traveled across the Mediterranean Sea, entering Paris with travelers and missionaries. Many of these works ended up in the Ethnographic Museum of the Trocadéro; others were sold in Parisian galleries.  The modernist artist Henri Matisse first witnessed the unique sense of proportions and form of sub-Saharan African sculpture in one such gallery, belonging to the art dealer, Emile Heymann. The characteristics of these objects differed greatly from European sculptures’ inclination to directly imitate their subjects. Matisse would incorporate various stylistic choices of sculptors across Africa in his own work for the rest of his career, simultaneously challenging Western art traditions and marginalizing the original African context of these objects. 

Throughout the early 1900s, Matisse curated his collection of African sculpture. In 1906, he first acquired an African sculpture, a seated figure made by a Kongo-Vili artist, from either the Democratic Republic of the Congo or the Republic of the Congo. Thereafter, works in his possession hailed from across the continent, including Congo, Ivory Coast, Mali, and Guinea. By 1908, he owned probably 20 sculptures, masks, and sacred relics–a small collection, but one in which he took much pride. Max Weber, an American student at Académie Matisse later detailed the artist’s adoration of the “marvelous workmanship, the unique sense of proportion, the supple palpitating fullness of form and equilibrium in [sub-Saharan African sculpture],” according to the exhibition catalogue. Matisse appropriated the fundamentals of African sculpture into his own work, as well as his into his teaching. 

The artist’s fascination with and close examination of sub-Saharan African art greatly influenced his 1907-1908 painting Bathers with a Turtle. At the height of his collecting of these sculptures, he was producing the famous painting. The harsh angles and thick lines present in the work are reminiscent of the planar forms of African sculpture. The dark outlines featured along the figure seated in profile resemble carved wood; her breasts, left arm, and left leg are accentuated with angular contours darker than those of the other bathers.

Most notably, the painting’s central standing figure seems to be a recreation of either the sacred Kongo-Vili statuette or one of a larger pair of Baga statues (shown above), which were also in Matisse’s collection and which originally symbolized attributes of fertility. Additionally, Matisse’s bather’s face is darker than the rest of her body— while her face may simply be cast in shadow, it is possible this intentional darkening of the face was done to challenge the Western art tradition that bathers be portrayed as white. The figure’s “flat, wide nose, black lines for eyes, and abstracted ear, suggest attributes of African masks that Matisse owned,” according to exhibition curator Simon Kelly in a featured essay in the exhibition catalogue. 

While undoubtedly influenced by the sculptures’ workmanship, Matisse neglected to investigate their original artists. His adaptation of characteristics of African sculpture, however, challenged Western representations of the female nude, transforming modern art irrevocably. His impact on the artistic ecosystem is undeniable yet does not minimize his part in the colonization of Africa. 

 “It is important it realize that [Matisse] never fully recognized or understood the agency of the African artisans who had made these sculptures,” Kelly wrote in the catalogue. 

Read more about Matisse’s relationship with African art, as well as specific pieces from which he took influence in the new catalogue for Matisse and the Sea, available in the Museum Shop. The exhibition is on view through May 12.