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"A book like Alastair Wright's Matisse and the Subject of Modernism is enough to rekindle my faith in the future of art history as a discipline. . . . [I]t manages to cast entirely new light on Matisse's best-known works of the period from 1905-13." ---Yve-Alain Bois, ArtForum Informationen zum Autor Alastair Wright is Assistant Professor of Art History at Princeton University. Klappentext "This book offers fresh insights and interpretations and uncovers new critical materials while utilizing novel theoretical perspectives. It will be essential reading not only for all scholars of Matisse and of Fauvism and early-twentieth-century art, but also readers with an interest in French cultural history and pre-World War I society. Art historians who seek models for utilizing contemporary criticism and theoretical perspectives in connection with studies of individual works will also find much of value here." --Tamar Garb, University College London "Complex and ambitious, this book will be of great interest to students and scholars of modern art and, more broadly, to anyone interested in revisionist approaches to early twentieth-century culture. It combines high standards of research, sophistication of method, and a sustained commitment to its central thesis: that Matisse's Fauve paintings, routinely considered to be canonical and beautiful, should be appreciated for the subversive challenge they offer to a coherent view of modernism." --John Klein, author of Matisse Portraits Zusammenfassung Examining the public response to Matisse's work, this book views that his early-twentieth-century audience found in his painting a deeply disturbing challenge to concepts of the self, of the nation, and of the West. It refutes the popular view of Matisse as the painter of relaxed pleasures, the master of decorative line, and sensuous color.
