Henri Matisse’s Pink

Fashion x Art Edit #6

As I have said before, Barbiecore is here to stay for a good chunk of time. From Valentino’s PP Pink runway show to high street labels, everyone is getting into the hot pink trend reminiscent of Y2K.

But hot pink is not the only color going through a revival, it seems like neon and bold colors are making a comeback. Reds, greens, blues, yellows, all seem to have gone through an acid pop washing machine (or rather, dry-cleaning) cycle throwing us back to the 80s. Coupled with feathers, sparkles and rhinestones, fashion is funnier and more whimsical than ever.

When it comes to art history, the bold use of color is best expressed in the pop art of the 70s and 80s. But bold clashing colors were already investigated and used at the beginning of the 20th century. The Fauves artists in France, led by Andre Derain and Henri Matisse, used bold, non-naturalistic colors often directly out of the tube. They were interested in the scientific color theory, according to which opposite colors on a spectrum such as the color wheel reinforce each other and make each other appear brighter when applied side by side, creating a pictorial bomb. Color becomes the subject, calling for a flattening of the pictorial space, paving the way for abstraction and expressionism in post-impressionist European art.

Although most artists in the movement quickly moved to other pictorial developments, Matisse remained loyal to the simple shapes and emotional expression of symbolism coupled to intense colors. As shown here in The Pink Studio (1911), he was not scared to marry deep greens and blues to lighter pinks and yellows, while not shying away from complex compositions and patterns. So here is a tribute to Matisse’s daring sense of color, and to the renewed interest for fashion clashes