than Picasso. No abstract painter can claim descent from their

work without acknowledging that fact. The worldly motif,

especially the human body, and in particular the female body, was

as basic to Matisse's art as it had been to Delacroix's or

Titian's. His paintings vividly communicate a tension between

what he called ''the sign'' and the reality it pointed to. He

had learned about this tension and its anxieties from Cezanne.

But there has never been a great figurative artist who did not

feel and exemplify it. It can be as poignant in Giotto or even

in Poussin as it is in Cezanne or Matisse. For Matisse it was of

prime importance, whereas in abstract art it tends to fall away,

because one end of the cord is no longer anchored in the world

and its objects. This is not an argument against abstraction,

but it helps explain why, in those abstract paintings that derive

from Matisse, one so rarely feels the urgency of their great

An individual's personal relationship to art can be

dichotomized into two responses: either one is repelled or one is

the vibrancy of the yellow/orange hues to the fore. Upon closer

both the painting and the action within the painting. The first

Axis and the vertical Sand-Lime Y Axis, were ... utterly simple

meant to be this person in this place and in this position.

and again been associated with such Apollonian virtues as

assemblage. An arrangement of bricks tells us at once that it

Some common words found in the essay are:
Johns' Device, Bibemus Quarry, Romantic Neoclassicists, Blue Nude, Minimalism Pop, Sand-Lime Axis, Jasper Johns, Matisse Matisse, Georges Riviere, Aluminum Lock, jasper johns, modern art, sainte-victoire seen bibemus, 1996 august pp, carl andre, emotive value, matisse matisse, sand-lime axis, blue nude, matisse color, cezanne's mont sainte-victoire, mont sainte-victoire seen, mont sainte-victoire, floor piece, seen bibemus quarry,
Approximate Word count = 2198
Approximate Pages = 9 (250 words per page double spaced)