Matisse's Leaves

On the left, a photograph of white oak leaves lying on the street. On the right,"La Gerbe,"an image composed by Henri Matisse, who used leaf forms in many of his late works composed of shapes he cut out of paper. Here the artist has arranged his leaves so that they appear to fly outward from a point at the bottom of the composition. The leaves have a dynamic energy lacking in the somewhat haphazard group of leaves lying on the street. Perhaps Matisse's leaves are swirling in the air.

The liveliness of Matisse's composition emerges not only from the artist's arrangement of the leaves in relation to one another, but also from his depiction of each leaf's shape. The leaves share an overall similarity of shape and their simple, smoothly rounded lobes identify them as white oak leaves. But like white oak leaves in nature, Matisse's leaves are all a bit different. The multiple lobes of the leaves spread out in subtly different ways, generating a vibrant multiplicity of contrasts between the leaves. In addition, the broad and deep sinuses of the leaves create negative spaces that play leaf against the uniformly colored background. The interplay of figure and ground reveals the dynamic patterning inherent in the sinus-and-lobe shape of the individual leaves. This kind of visual play is not available in leaves of solid form, such as the tulip poplar.

Matisse has also achieved liveliness by varying the number of lobes on his leaves. Some of these structures are multiplied beyond what is found in nature, but this might be considered a reminder of the variations such leaves can achieve. Matisse has also morphed the basic leaf form to insert several human hand-like forms. Leaf Jumpers, a children's book, refers to the “stubby fingers” of the white oak leaf.

from Leaf Jumpers by Carole Gerber.     Three hand forms among Matisse's leaves

Illustrated by Leslie Evans                             “La Gerbe”, 1953

 A white oak leaf can sometimes bear a resemblance to the whole hand. The leaf below spreads its lobes from a central mass, as fingers spread from the palm. This is not a normal shape for a white oak leaf. Did Matisse find a leaf like this one? Or did the “demands” of his composition dictate the artist's departures from the basic leaf shape?