Norton Simon Museum
CUT-OUTS
Their spontaneity and liveliness characterize them. Cutouts are from the abstract expressionism, but cutouts were inspired by the fauvism movement, which emphasis on the mood rather than depicting the world realistically. They also used bright colors which were inspired by the gouaches decoupees such as the Jazz books illustrations.
Cutouts are described as painting with scissors for using scissors as the primary tool of artistry. They may be criticized for their childlike nature of cut up and collaging. It uses colors to interact with the viewers. They borrowed from Fauvism who used bright contrasting colors and simplified their shapes. They also juxtaposed colors such as arbitrary colors to express themselves.
In comparison to a painted art, instead of drawing the object and coloring it, Matisse drew straight into the color. In the gouaches decoupees technique, Matisse used saturated colors against a white background to neutralize the painting. They are often large collages of cut and pasted paper in their abstract and vibrant colors.
Like paint which either uses thick or thin brush strokes, cut outs composed by adding or subtracting from the colored paper. The subtraction method is a sculptural method that was used by Michelangelo in his sculptures. Cutouts are also often floating forms over geometrical backgrounds.
Cutouts are a blend of paintings and sculptures. However, they represent a more liberated and open composition to those restricted in nature. The saturated colors are harmonized by the use of a black or white background.
Lastly, in contrast to Edgar, who was an impressionist artist, abstract expressionism used color to convey emotion rather than striving to replicate the external world as impressionists did accurately.
Edgar Dega’s Lifesize Copy of Nicolas Poussin’s The Rape of the Sabine Women
It is a landscape painting that focuses on capturing the fleeting moment. Like the cutout paintings, Edgar also experimented with the use of gouache technique.
The rape of the Sabine women was from the historical event when Sabine women were abducted. The painting is charged with courageous, fearful and confused motions. The art is realistically depicted. The movement is used to capture the frenzy of the moment and communicate the emotions and actions. Two people in the background, the woman in blue, the man in yellow, and they are captured in motion supporting themselves with one leg. The white horse also rears to represent the tension in the scene. In the centre a nurse kneels on the ground. A woman in the foreground tries to run but is caught by a soldier.
The figures are diagonally painted, which adds to the tension. The diagonal lines also add to the emotional turmoil by contrasting with the horizontal lines by the captures. Diagonal lines are also used to emphasis the frenzy movement. On the other hand, the horizontal lines by the Romans convey a sense of rest and repose. The horizontal line is also used to create space in the painting. They convey a meaning of depth, distance and width. The three-dimensional lines
also illustrate space.
The use of foreshortening also emphasizes space and distance. The figures in the foreground appear short and compressed to emphasis their emotional state. In the background, the man in white and the woman at the first storey of the building appear small, which emphasizes the distance. The people that appear to be watching the scene from the second building are also foreshortened to make them look smaller than they are.
The colors in the painting are deep and vibrant. In comparison with the paper cutouts, the art uses deep vibrant colors to evoke texture. The art is marked by vibrant colors such as blue and yellow.