Matisse, lover of Japan, and the Kimono

If there's one thing that binds romantics together, among other things, it might be the desire to speak with the dead. 

As in Midnight in Paris by Woody Allen, I regularly talk to these influences from the past. Not just take them as a reference, but talk to them yes. Within this friendship of the deceased, Matisse is one of those who could make me take a stroll, late at night, on the banks of the Seine, to hope that a carriage will come and steal us away and send us back to an evening that would belong to someone else. time. Talking and dancing with the dead.

Total coincidence that our first collection tackles the Kimono? Not at all, because it was perhaps Matisse who first introduced us to the influences of Japanese art.

At the age of 35, in 1904, Matisse met Japanese art collector and art dealer Gustave Rivière, who had an impressive collection of Japanese prints. It was following this meeting that Matisse began collecting these Japanese prints. These prints were even found in his studio.

More profoundly, Japanese art influenced Matisse in his representation of space. He often used solid patterns and overlapping planes to create a sense of depth in his paintings, a technique he borrowed from traditional Japanese art.

It was a year later that he finished painting.”The Japanese". It depicts his wife, Amélie, dressed in a Japanese kimono, decorated with traditional Japanese motifs. 

Romantics also love speculation. Ours ? That he would have loved the Helene kimono, to make Amélie wear it.