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Lot Essay
This work is sold with a photo-certificate from Wanda de Guébriant.
There is a simple yet intricate lyricism in the simple lines with which Matisse has conjured before us the image of the two Femmes assises. Executed in 1938, this entrancing image of two ladies languidly relaxing marks the epitome both of Matisse's line drawings and of the luxuriant life-style of the South of France with which they are so thoroughly infused. There is a rococo swirl to the depiction of these figures, while the curlicues of the foliage and even parts of their body evoking an engaging musicality.
With apparent ease, Matisse manages to condense a scene using the barest economy of means, and yet in his hands these means provide an arsenal. The confidence of his line, the effortless virtuosity with which the Femmes assises have been rendered, have been augmented by the artist's use of the paper itself as medium, rather than mere support. The unmodulated lines allow the brilliance of the support to shine through, the areas left in reserve articulated by the lines to create a final image that is full of enchanting light and rhythm. Matisse wrote: 'My line drawing is the purest and most direct translation of my emotion. Simplification of means allows that. But those drawings are more complete than they appear to some people who confuse them with a sketch. They generate light; looked at in poor, or indirect light, they contain not only quality and sensibility, but also light and difference in values corresponding obviously to color... Once I have put my emotion to line and modelled the light of my white paper, without destroying its endearing whiteness, I can add or take away nothing further' (quoted in Matisse as a Draughtsman, exh. cat., Baltimore, 1971, p. 18).
There is a simple yet intricate lyricism in the simple lines with which Matisse has conjured before us the image of the two Femmes assises. Executed in 1938, this entrancing image of two ladies languidly relaxing marks the epitome both of Matisse's line drawings and of the luxuriant life-style of the South of France with which they are so thoroughly infused. There is a rococo swirl to the depiction of these figures, while the curlicues of the foliage and even parts of their body evoking an engaging musicality.
With apparent ease, Matisse manages to condense a scene using the barest economy of means, and yet in his hands these means provide an arsenal. The confidence of his line, the effortless virtuosity with which the Femmes assises have been rendered, have been augmented by the artist's use of the paper itself as medium, rather than mere support. The unmodulated lines allow the brilliance of the support to shine through, the areas left in reserve articulated by the lines to create a final image that is full of enchanting light and rhythm. Matisse wrote: 'My line drawing is the purest and most direct translation of my emotion. Simplification of means allows that. But those drawings are more complete than they appear to some people who confuse them with a sketch. They generate light; looked at in poor, or indirect light, they contain not only quality and sensibility, but also light and difference in values corresponding obviously to color... Once I have put my emotion to line and modelled the light of my white paper, without destroying its endearing whiteness, I can add or take away nothing further' (quoted in Matisse as a Draughtsman, exh. cat., Baltimore, 1971, p. 18).