The Horse, The Rider and the Clown, from Jazz by Henri Matisse

Henri Matisse – The Horse, The Rider and the Clown (1947) Prints

Bring the exuberant colour and circus-inspired energy of Henri Matisse’s celebrated Jazz portfolio into your home with a Henri Matisse The Horse, The Rider and the Clown print. Published in 1947 as Plate V of Jazz, this extraordinary composition transforms a circus performance into an arrangement of brilliant colour, simplified silhouettes and sweeping organic forms.

Available as fine art prints and canvas panels, The Horse, The Rider and the Clown – originally titled Le Cheval, l’écuyère et le clown – is one of the works that best demonstrates the playful theatrical character of Matisse’s Jazz series. Bold yellow, green, black, white and other saturated colours create a composition filled with movement and visual rhythm.

A Circus Scene Transformed into Modern Art

The circus was one of the principal inspirations behind the early designs for Matisse’s Jazz portfolio. Rather than illustrating a performance realistically, however, Matisse reduced the spectacle to a small number of instantly expressive shapes.

In The Horse, The Rider and the Clown, the equestrian performer is suggested by the distinctive black-and-white form of her skirt extending across the horse, while the clown is represented through areas of green, black and yellow. A sweeping yellow form evokes the ringmaster’s whip, introducing another strong directional element into the composition.

These simplified visual signs allow Matisse to communicate the excitement of the circus without conventional perspective, anatomical detail or descriptive scenery. Instead, colour and shape carry the action.

Painting Style

Drawing with Scissors

The Horse, The Rider and the Clown originated from Matisse’s revolutionary experiments with gouache-painted paper cut-outs. Sheets of paper were painted in intense colours and then cut directly with scissors before the resulting shapes were arranged into compositions.

Matisse came to describe this process as “drawing with scissors”. Cutting into coloured paper allowed him to create contour and colour simultaneously, removing the traditional separation between drawing a shape and subsequently painting it.

The technique gave his late work remarkable spontaneity. Curved edges, irregular silhouettes and broad expanses of colour communicate movement with an immediacy that would have been difficult to achieve through conventional painting alone.

Colour, Movement and Circus Performance

The composition is driven by strong contrasts between intensely coloured forms. Rather than reproducing the natural colours of a horse, costume or circus arena, Matisse uses colour independently to establish rhythm and visual emphasis.

Black and white create powerful structural contrasts, while areas of green and yellow animate the surface. The curved shapes appear to move around one another, evoking the motion and controlled excitement of a circus performance.

This ability to suggest action through static shapes is one of the defining qualities of Matisse’s late work. The eye continually moves from one coloured form to another, giving the composition a lively visual tempo.

The Circus and Matisse’s Jazz Portfolio

Although the portfolio eventually became known as Jazz, many of its earliest images were inspired by the circus. Acrobats, clowns, equestrian performers and other entertainers offered Matisse subjects defined by movement, balance, danger and spectacle.

The title Jazz came to express the broader character of the project rather than describing every image literally. Like musical improvisation, Matisse’s compositions rely upon variations of rhythm, repetition, contrast and unexpected changes of form.

The Horse, The Rider and the Clown embodies both aspects of the portfolio particularly well: its subject comes directly from the circus, while its arrangement of colour and shape possesses the improvisational quality suggested by the title Jazz.

Plate V from Jazz

The Horse, The Rider and the Clown appears as Plate V in Matisse’s Jazz portfolio. It follows The Nightmare of the White Elephant and precedes The Wolf within the sequence of twenty colour plates.

The finished portfolio was published in Paris in 1947 by Tériade. Matisse’s cut-paper designs were reproduced using the pochoir stencil-printing technique, chosen to preserve the brilliant, flat colour of the original gouache-painted papers.

The resulting images remain closely associated with Matisse’s transformation during the 1940s from conventional painting towards the monumental paper cut-outs of his final years.

The Horse, The Rider and the Clown Wall Art for Modern Interiors

A Henri Matisse The Horse, The Rider and the Clown wall art print is an excellent choice for interiors where bold colour and playful modernist design are desired. Its large simplified shapes create substantial visual impact without the intricate detail of a conventional figurative painting.

The composition works particularly well in contemporary, Scandinavian, eclectic and mid-century modern interiors. Against white, cream, putty or other neutral walls, its saturated colours can provide an immediate focal point.

Displayed above a sofa, console table, sideboard or bed, a Matisse Jazz print introduces energy and artistic character to the room. It can also be combined with Icarus, the Lagoon compositions and other works from Jazz to create a colourful Henri Matisse gallery wall.

About Henri Matisse

Henri Matisse (1869–1954) was a French painter, draughtsman, sculptor and printmaker whose revolutionary approach to colour and form made him one of the defining artists of twentieth-century modernism.

Matisse first achieved international prominence as the leading figure associated with Fauvism. His paintings from the early twentieth century rejected conventional naturalistic colour in favour of intense reds, blues, greens and yellows selected for their emotional and compositional power.

Throughout his career, Matisse progressively simplified his visual language. Figures, landscapes and interiors were increasingly reduced to flowing contours and carefully balanced areas of colour.

During the 1940s, reduced mobility encouraged him to work extensively with paper painted in gouache and cut into shapes with scissors. Rather than functioning merely as a substitute for painting, this new technique became one of the most innovative phases of his career.

The Jazz portfolio was a crucial step in that development. Works such as The Horse, The Rider and the Clown, Icarus and the Lagoon compositions demonstrate Matisse’s ability to convey movement, atmosphere and emotion through remarkably economical combinations of colour and form.

Today, Henri Matisse prints continue to appeal to collectors and interior designers for their combination of major art-historical significance, extraordinary colour and enduring modernity.

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Fine art papers are printed without any additional white border Please let us know at the time of ordering if you would like a small additional white border.

Rolled canvas options have an additional white border of approximately 2.5 inches (7cm) on all 4 sides to aid stretching.

Ready to hang canvas panels are stretched on 1.5 inch deep solid pine frames from sustainable forestry sources. The image is mirrored on all 4 sides to give an aesthetically pleasing finish.

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