A Look at Matisse Methods in Poetry Illustration

This article introduces and studies a different aspect of the works of a twentieth century artist called Henry Matisse. In addition to the special status ofMatisse in twentieth century paintings, he had accepted many book illustrations which were some of the best artistic books of the century. Undoubtedly, the authenticity of these books was reduplicated with the reputation of the painter as well as famous authors. Meanwhile, poetic prose and poetry were of Matisse`s interest because of their imaginative vitality. Most of the books he illustrated are poetry. Despite enrichment of color in his paintings, in these illustrations color is completely removed, but sketching symbols and visual qualities of the writing, using various methods and techniques, are at the service of visual expression of poetry. The artist`s loyalty to the text, the harmony of designs and texts on a page, the visual value of these designs, and the formation of an illustration in a book are some of the cases this paper reviews. In many cases, Matisse attempted to pick his favorite literary texts in order to align his own language with them, and consequently, all his illustrated books are univalent. This paper is descriptive, relying on library sources as well as some scholastic websites, and required explanations regarding the history of the scheme are provided after the introduction.