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Lot Essay
“My line drawing is the purest and most direct translation of my emotion.”
Henri Matisse
Inspired by the presence of his principal model, Lydia Delectorskaya, Matisse began a great series of pen and India ink drawings between 1935 and the end of 1947. These sequences represented female figures at ease, nude or clothed, amidst elaborate interior settings clad with his trademark patterned textiles. Described by John Elderfield as “among the greatest achievements of his draughtsmanship,” these nudes saw the artist break new ground in his graphic oeuvre as he captured, with an instinctive and unerring line, the sensuous forms of his models in perfect accord with their surroundings. “Some of the individual sheets are breathtaking in their assurance and audacity,” Elderfield continued, “and almost without exception, they realise what the comparable, late 1920s ink drawings did not: decorative assimilation of the figure into the decorated unity of the sheet” (J. Elderfield, quoted in The Drawings of Henri Matisse, exh. cat., The Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1985, p. 113). Femme nue allongée belongs to this celebrated grouping of works.
Pictured reclining upon a richly patterned textile-covered divan, her body twisted as she gazes dreamily into the distance, the nude in the present work only recalls the sensuous odalisques of the 1920s and acts as a bridge towards the explorations that Matisse had been making into this subject earlier in 1935. These ink drawings of nudes, seen in the decorated environment of Matisse's studio in Nice, are absolutely fully-formed and self-contained works of art. They were not, like many artists' drawings, an initial conception or study for something else, but an end in themselves, a perfectly realised synthesis of subject and mastery of means. Using the device of the artist’s sketchbook in the present drawing, Matisse opens the space and renders two views of his model, creating a drawing within a drawing.
Elderfield explained, "In the great mid-1930s drawing, [line drawing] magically finds affinity with linear Eastern decorations and patterned fabrics, with arabesque ornaments and latticework screens. In the Nice period [the 1920s], things of this kind had frequently been represented, and Matisse continued this practice in the 1930s. But now, the drawing itself is a latticework, an all-over patterned fabric. The exotic mood of the earlier drawings disappears. And so does the heavily sensual atmosphere. No longer does Matisse depict the exotic or the sensual. His drawings embody exoticism and sensuality within the purity of their means" (ibid., p. 114).
Matisse realised that he had achieved something quite remarkable and noteworthy. In 1939, the editors of the art journal Le Point persuaded Matisse to make a statement about drawing, just as he had done about painting in 1908. He had titled the earlier text Notes of a Painter. He alluded to it in his new pronouncements, which he called Notes of a Painter on His Drawing. Although he had been making very fine charcoal drawings as well at this time, Matisse considered first and foremost the great line drawings he had done over the past several years. He wrote:
“My line drawing is the purest and most direct translation of my emotion. The simplification of the medium allows that. However, these drawings are more complete than they appear to some people, who confuse them with a kind of sketch. They generate light; they contain, in addition to the flavour and sensitivity of the line, light and value differences that quite clearly correspond to olor. They derive from the fact that the drawings are preceded by studies made in a less rigorous medium than pure line, such as charcoal or stump drawing, which allows me to consider simultaneously the character of the model, her human expression, the quality of the surrounding light, the atmosphere, and all that can only be expressed in drawing. And it is only then I feel I am drained by the work, which may go on for several sessions, that my mind is cleared and I have the confidence to give free rein to my pen. Then I distinctly feel that my emotion is expressed by means of plastic writing” (quoted in J. Flam, ed., Matisse on Art, Berkeley, 1995, pp. 130-131).
Henri Matisse
Inspired by the presence of his principal model, Lydia Delectorskaya, Matisse began a great series of pen and India ink drawings between 1935 and the end of 1947. These sequences represented female figures at ease, nude or clothed, amidst elaborate interior settings clad with his trademark patterned textiles. Described by John Elderfield as “among the greatest achievements of his draughtsmanship,” these nudes saw the artist break new ground in his graphic oeuvre as he captured, with an instinctive and unerring line, the sensuous forms of his models in perfect accord with their surroundings. “Some of the individual sheets are breathtaking in their assurance and audacity,” Elderfield continued, “and almost without exception, they realise what the comparable, late 1920s ink drawings did not: decorative assimilation of the figure into the decorated unity of the sheet” (J. Elderfield, quoted in The Drawings of Henri Matisse, exh. cat., The Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1985, p. 113). Femme nue allongée belongs to this celebrated grouping of works.
Pictured reclining upon a richly patterned textile-covered divan, her body twisted as she gazes dreamily into the distance, the nude in the present work only recalls the sensuous odalisques of the 1920s and acts as a bridge towards the explorations that Matisse had been making into this subject earlier in 1935. These ink drawings of nudes, seen in the decorated environment of Matisse's studio in Nice, are absolutely fully-formed and self-contained works of art. They were not, like many artists' drawings, an initial conception or study for something else, but an end in themselves, a perfectly realised synthesis of subject and mastery of means. Using the device of the artist’s sketchbook in the present drawing, Matisse opens the space and renders two views of his model, creating a drawing within a drawing.
Elderfield explained, "In the great mid-1930s drawing, [line drawing] magically finds affinity with linear Eastern decorations and patterned fabrics, with arabesque ornaments and latticework screens. In the Nice period [the 1920s], things of this kind had frequently been represented, and Matisse continued this practice in the 1930s. But now, the drawing itself is a latticework, an all-over patterned fabric. The exotic mood of the earlier drawings disappears. And so does the heavily sensual atmosphere. No longer does Matisse depict the exotic or the sensual. His drawings embody exoticism and sensuality within the purity of their means" (ibid., p. 114).
Matisse realised that he had achieved something quite remarkable and noteworthy. In 1939, the editors of the art journal Le Point persuaded Matisse to make a statement about drawing, just as he had done about painting in 1908. He had titled the earlier text Notes of a Painter. He alluded to it in his new pronouncements, which he called Notes of a Painter on His Drawing. Although he had been making very fine charcoal drawings as well at this time, Matisse considered first and foremost the great line drawings he had done over the past several years. He wrote:
“My line drawing is the purest and most direct translation of my emotion. The simplification of the medium allows that. However, these drawings are more complete than they appear to some people, who confuse them with a kind of sketch. They generate light; they contain, in addition to the flavour and sensitivity of the line, light and value differences that quite clearly correspond to olor. They derive from the fact that the drawings are preceded by studies made in a less rigorous medium than pure line, such as charcoal or stump drawing, which allows me to consider simultaneously the character of the model, her human expression, the quality of the surrounding light, the atmosphere, and all that can only be expressed in drawing. And it is only then I feel I am drained by the work, which may go on for several sessions, that my mind is cleared and I have the confidence to give free rein to my pen. Then I distinctly feel that my emotion is expressed by means of plastic writing” (quoted in J. Flam, ed., Matisse on Art, Berkeley, 1995, pp. 130-131).