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abstract art, art, charcoal, digital media, digital painting, drawing, fauvism, illustration, illustrator, innovation, levinland, lon levin, matisse, modern art, painter, sketching, social media, technology
I could’ve chosen any one of dozens of Henri’s pieces but this one spoke to me imediately. Not sure why but Matisse’s influence on the art of today is so over powering it cannot be overlooked. Fine artist or illustrator? Both and even more. In the art world the two giants that dominated the 20th century are Matisse and Picasso.
Henri-Émile-Benoît Matisse 31 December 1869 – 3 November 1954) was a French artist, known for his use of colour and his fluid and original draughtsmanship. He was a draughtsman, printmaker, and sculptor, but is known primarily as a painter. Matisse is commonly regarded, along with Picasso and Marcel Duchamp, as one of the three artists who helped to define the revolutionary developments in the plastic arts in the opening decades of the 20th century, responsible for significant developments in painting and sculpture. Although he was initially labelled a Fauve (wild beast), by the 1920s he was increasingly hailed as an upholder of the classical tradition in French painting. His mastery of the expressive language of colour and drawing, displayed in a body of work spanning over a half-century, won him recognition as a leading figure in modern art.
The Illustrators Journal 
Happy belated birthday, Henri. You’ve been a fave of mine, gracing my imagination and flights of fancy.