Lot Essay
Please note that as recorded by Duthuit in the 1997 edition of his Catalogue Raisonn, there are two casts of this composition numbered 3/10.
In 1906 Matisse exhibited Bonheur de Vivre at the Salon des Indpendants. This major composition depicted sixteen figures presented in a wide variety of poses. M.P. Mezzatesta writes that one of the figures in the painting,
The girl with ivy in her hair at the far left, may have served as a point of departure for another work, the bronze Standing Nude, Arms on Head [the present work]. Matisse was fascinated with the motif of the upraised arms, treating it earlier in two bronzes of 1904. Standing Nude, Arms on Head, shows the sensous pose with arched back and protruding breasts of the earlier statuettes but also exhibits a new interest in an expressive, undulating contour, as seen in the sharp curve of the back, and the dimpled outline of the buttocks in the Bonheur de Vivre's girl with ivy. (M.P. Mezzatesta, op. cit., p. 55)
Matisse once remarked to his students, "The human body is an architecture of forms linked with each other and supporting one another; it is like a building, each of whose separate parts has a role to play in the finished whole." He also said, "What interests me most is not still lifes, or landscapes, but the human form. It is here that I can best express my almost religious feeling about life" (A. Izerghina, Henri Matisse, Paintings and Sculptures in Soviet Museums, Leningrad, 1978, p. 186).
In 1906 Matisse exhibited Bonheur de Vivre at the Salon des Indpendants. This major composition depicted sixteen figures presented in a wide variety of poses. M.P. Mezzatesta writes that one of the figures in the painting,
The girl with ivy in her hair at the far left, may have served as a point of departure for another work, the bronze Standing Nude, Arms on Head [the present work]. Matisse was fascinated with the motif of the upraised arms, treating it earlier in two bronzes of 1904. Standing Nude, Arms on Head, shows the sensous pose with arched back and protruding breasts of the earlier statuettes but also exhibits a new interest in an expressive, undulating contour, as seen in the sharp curve of the back, and the dimpled outline of the buttocks in the Bonheur de Vivre's girl with ivy. (M.P. Mezzatesta, op. cit., p. 55)
Matisse once remarked to his students, "The human body is an architecture of forms linked with each other and supporting one another; it is like a building, each of whose separate parts has a role to play in the finished whole." He also said, "What interests me most is not still lifes, or landscapes, but the human form. It is here that I can best express my almost religious feeling about life" (A. Izerghina, Henri Matisse, Paintings and Sculptures in Soviet Museums, Leningrad, 1978, p. 186).