Jean-Matthieu Matisse: As mentioned, the Guerlain house is tradition, know-how, it is the side where there is no fashion and where we are there to make a product that will be the most beautiful and the fairest. possible. What I liked regarding this project is that we might both be free to carry out the project together with our ideas and with what it represents.
Why did you choose the table The music (1939) by Henri Matisse to personalize the bottle with Bees?
Ann-Caroline Vacant : The music (1939) represents a very important period in the life of Henri Matisse. It is a painting that brings together music, painting and perfume. Indeed, Henri Matisse was a very great violinist and musician. This painting is therefore dear to him because it tells the story of the music. Through our collaboration, it was important for us to have resonances regarding this wonderful man and his story. Music, painting and perfume are three different arts. However, when we talk regarding perfumes, we talk regarding “green notes”, for example. We therefore use the vocabulary of paint and color (“green”), as well as the vocabulary of music (“note”). Finally, the objective in choosing this painting is also to tell how much these three arts are inspired by each other.
How did you manage to transcribe this painting on the Bee bottle?
Ann-Caroline Vacant : There was a lot of work because this collaboration means taking codes, shapes, colors from a painting and knowing how to reinterpret them on a bottle. And this is where all the difficulty lies in not being Matisse – and in any case, in not wanting to be -. Fortunately, we had the eye of Jean-Matthieu Matisse and the team to help us acquire and understand Matisse’s work. It was a year of intensive work, but it was wonderful work because we learned so much regarding Matisse’s work.
La collection Art & Matter of this year is inspired by the painting The Thousand and One Nights (1950).
Ann-Caroline Empty : This painting is a completely different part of Henri Matisse’s life. We chose two major works by the artist, but from very different periods and therefore, in a very different universe. Again, the work was extremely difficult. If the cutouts may seem simple in Matisse’s work, they are not. Each element, each color, each resonance has been skilfully thought out and worked on. It was a real work of composition, both difficult and done with a lot of pleasure.
Astrid Chaillé designed these unique bottles.
Ann-Carolin Vacant : Yes, it’s Astrid, a craftswoman. So she didn’t draw them. All the work of constitution, positioning, elements was carried out with Jean-Matthieu Matisse and the teams of the Guerlain house. Then, Astrid Chaillé, with all her talent, made these bottles by hand. And this, with the dullness and texture that we wanted. It was so difficult because she didn’t work on a flat surface. We really have the bees of Guerlain and Napoleon III (the bee is the symbol of the emperor, editor’s note.) which mingle with the paint, shapes and colors of Matisse. It’s a total marriage.
