Matisse's The Joy of life and Cézanne's The Large Bathers
The Joy of Life by Henri Matisse is perhaps the first canvas to clearly understand the great formal challenge of Paul Cézanne and to further the elder master's ideas. This painting is simultaneously seen as inspired by and breaking free of Paul Cézanne's, last great painting, The Large Bathers in its marked symmetry and the adaptation of the nude forms to the triangular pattern of the trees and river.
The Large Bathers by Paul Cézanne is a masterpiece of modern art
Three large paintings of bathers in the landscape were the main preoccupation of the French painter Paul Cézanne in the last years of his life. The most famous is the painting The Large Bathers, which he painted for an incredible seven years, and considered unfinished until he died in 1906. The painting is considered a masterpiece of modern art and one of the greatest compositions of all time. It became an inspiration for Cubism and influenced many generations of modern artists. In form and date, The Joy of Life by Henri Matisse is closest to Cézanne's last great image of bathers and the nude figures in the painting were later compared to Pablo Picasso's painting of The Young Ladies of Avignon. The painting The Large Bathers is housed in the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
Greatest Fauve painting The Joy of Life by Henri Matisse
During his Fauve years, Henri Matisse often painted landscapes in the south of France during the summer and worked up ideas developed there into larger compositions upon his return to Paris. In 1906, he finished the oil on canvas Le Bonheur de Vivre, or The Joy of Life, his typical important imaginary composition which gives in a concise form the spirit of Fauvism better than his any other Fauve painting. Today, this painting is in the collection of the Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Philosophy of happiness as a guide to finding satisfaction in life
Human happiness has long been understood as something difficult or impossible to achieve, and over the centuries philosophers have advised people how to live a happy life. In philosophy, happiness is translated from the Greek concept of eudaimonia, and it refers to the good life or prosperity and not only to emotions, and is generally understood as a moral goal of life or as an aspect of chance. Philosophical “theories of happiness“ can be about either of at least two different things: well-being or a state of mind can be related to any of at least two different things, well-being or state of mind.
Aristotle: For which reason some identify happiness with good fortune, though others identify it with virtue
For this reason also the question is asked, whether happiness is to beacquired by learning or by habituation or some other sort of training, or comes in virtue of some divine providence or again by chance. Now if there is any gift of the gods to men, it is reasonable that happiness should be god-given, and most surely god-given of all human things in asmuchas it is the best. But this question would perhaps be more appropriate to another inquiry; happiness seems, however, even if it is not god-sent but comes as a result of virtue and some process of learning or training, to be among the most god like things; for that which is the prize and end of virtue seems to be the best thing in the world, and something god like and blessed.
Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics discover the nature of human happiness
The Nicomachean Ethics has a preeminent role in defining Aristotelian ethics. This work was written around 340 BC and consists of ten books, originally separate scrolls. The title is often assumed to refer to his son Nicomachus, to whom the work was dedicated or who may have edited it. Also, the work may have been dedicated to his father, who was also called Nicomachus. The Nicomachean Ethics is considered one of the most important historical philosophical works. It becomes one of the core works of medieval philosophy and indirectly becomes critical in the development of modern philosophy.