Lot Essay
Wanda de Gubriant has confirmed the authenticity of this drawing.
Matisse produced the drawings in his Thmes et variations series from 1941-1942, after recovering from a serious illness. "I have the feeling," he said in 1943, "that all these drawings result from a fusion of my experiences, of my works, of my need for knowledge."(quoted in G. Diehl, "Avec Matisse le classique," Comoedia, vol. 3, no. 102, 12 June 1943, p. 6). The production of these drawings also coincided with his renewed interest in the philosphical writings of Henri Bergson, which addressed ideas of time, memory and relative experience. The structure of theme and variations lent itself, as with its musical equivalent, to an exploration of the multiple realities within a subject. Matisse would begin by creating, in a relaxed atmosphere, his "theme" drawing in charcoal. He then produced the variations in two- to four-hour sessions of intense concentration. Matisse had previously worked in small series, but never before with the fervent exploration of form versus subject matter as he did with these drawings, which he viewed as "simplifications of signs." As Jack Flam notes, "The way in which Matisse used recurrent themes and variations, suggests that his art was based on a concept of reality remarkably close to that of Bergson, in which form is conceived as the outline of movement and reality as a perpetual state of becoming." (J. Flam, "Matisse's Dessins Thmes et variations, A Book and a Method", Henri Matisse Zeichnungen und Gouaches dcoupes, exh. cat., Staatsgalerie, Stuttgart, December 1993-February 1994, p. 121).
Matisse produced the drawings in his Thmes et variations series from 1941-1942, after recovering from a serious illness. "I have the feeling," he said in 1943, "that all these drawings result from a fusion of my experiences, of my works, of my need for knowledge."(quoted in G. Diehl, "Avec Matisse le classique," Comoedia, vol. 3, no. 102, 12 June 1943, p. 6). The production of these drawings also coincided with his renewed interest in the philosphical writings of Henri Bergson, which addressed ideas of time, memory and relative experience. The structure of theme and variations lent itself, as with its musical equivalent, to an exploration of the multiple realities within a subject. Matisse would begin by creating, in a relaxed atmosphere, his "theme" drawing in charcoal. He then produced the variations in two- to four-hour sessions of intense concentration. Matisse had previously worked in small series, but never before with the fervent exploration of form versus subject matter as he did with these drawings, which he viewed as "simplifications of signs." As Jack Flam notes, "The way in which Matisse used recurrent themes and variations, suggests that his art was based on a concept of reality remarkably close to that of Bergson, in which form is conceived as the outline of movement and reality as a perpetual state of becoming." (J. Flam, "Matisse's Dessins Thmes et variations, A Book and a Method", Henri Matisse Zeichnungen und Gouaches dcoupes, exh. cat., Staatsgalerie, Stuttgart, December 1993-February 1994, p. 121).