拍品专文
Wanda de Gubriant has confirmed the authenticity of this drawing.
The present study shows the transition from Matisse's Fauve style of drawing to a more linear depiction of the figure. The wide variety of small marks and hatching, the use of broken lines and the juxtaposition of open with darkly shaded areas are characteristic of the artist's Fauve style and are still seen in drawings of 1908 and 1909. As Matisse's preoccupation with the figure increased, his methods of drawing, at first more suited to the landscape, gave way to a new style:
"After Fauvism, contours close up to produce silhouetted wholes. Even so, line always maintains its independence as a fabricated thing. Fauvism, although itself anti-naturalistic, could hardly admit continuous line drawing at all because the Fauvist method was based upon empirical observation of the world, particularly of landscape, and its translation into constructions of color. Continous line drawing would have tipped the balance too far towards the conceptual. Matisse's absorption in line drawing, which began when he started work on Bonheur de vivre, tells of just that. The conceptual meant line drawing -- and line drawing meant figures, and vice versa. Subject and means are inextricably bound. Moreover, line drawing was not only conceptual. It was also the most basic means of graphic expression and as such especially appropriate to the particular subjects that Matisse began to address." (J. Elderfield, The Drawings of Henri Matisse, exh. cat., The Arts Council of Great Britain, London, 1984, p. 54)
The present study shows the transition from Matisse's Fauve style of drawing to a more linear depiction of the figure. The wide variety of small marks and hatching, the use of broken lines and the juxtaposition of open with darkly shaded areas are characteristic of the artist's Fauve style and are still seen in drawings of 1908 and 1909. As Matisse's preoccupation with the figure increased, his methods of drawing, at first more suited to the landscape, gave way to a new style:
"After Fauvism, contours close up to produce silhouetted wholes. Even so, line always maintains its independence as a fabricated thing. Fauvism, although itself anti-naturalistic, could hardly admit continuous line drawing at all because the Fauvist method was based upon empirical observation of the world, particularly of landscape, and its translation into constructions of color. Continous line drawing would have tipped the balance too far towards the conceptual. Matisse's absorption in line drawing, which began when he started work on Bonheur de vivre, tells of just that. The conceptual meant line drawing -- and line drawing meant figures, and vice versa. Subject and means are inextricably bound. Moreover, line drawing was not only conceptual. It was also the most basic means of graphic expression and as such especially appropriate to the particular subjects that Matisse began to address." (J. Elderfield, The Drawings of Henri Matisse, exh. cat., The Arts Council of Great Britain, London, 1984, p. 54)