Who painted "Le bonheur de vivre" ("The Joy of Life")?

Henri Émile Benoît Matisse (1869 –1954) was a French artist, known for both his use of colour and his fluid and original draughtsmanship.

"Le bonheur de vivre" ("The Joy of Life") is a painting by Henri Matisse. It is regarded as one of the pillars of early modernism. The monumental canvas was first exhibited at the “Salon des Indépendants” of 1906, where its cadmium colours and spatial distortions caused a public expression of protest and outrage.

Matisse finished what is often described as his greatest Fauve painting. The name les fauves (‘the wild beasts’) was coined by the critic Louis Vauxcelles when he saw the work of Henri Matisse and André Derain in an exhibition, the salon d’automne in Paris, in 1905.

The paintings exhibited were the result of a summer spent working together in Collioure in the South of France and were made using bold, non-naturalistic colours and wild loose dabs of paint. The forms of the subjects were also simplified making their work appear quite abstract.

The oil on canvas painting is typical of the artist’s important imaginary compositions. Starting with a landscape he had painted in Collioure to provide this setting, he also drew inspiration from Japanese woodcuts, Persian miniatures, Poussin, and Oriental depictions of harems. Portraying an Arcadian landscape adorned with brilliantly coloured forest, meadow, sea, and sky "Le Bonheur de Vivre" is populated with dancing and relaxing nude figures.