Dancer Resting
Henri Matisse
HENRI MATISSE, 1940. OIL ON CANVAS.
After a lifetime of painting, Matisse would abandon the medium in his final decade to work with paper cutouts. These, he felt, could bring his philosophy and fascination with form and motif to their most simple, elegant conclusion. This painting of his favourite model, Lydia Delectorskaya who would become his studio manager, muse, and caregiver, is one of the last he did before this transition. It encapsulates so much of his decades long career, hitting all of the notes of his greatest hits as if he was aware that it would serve, in parts, as a goodbye to the medium that had served him so well. The very floor that Lydia sits upon is akin to the paper cut-outs that would follow; sharp, rigid, geometry frames the loose, natural figure of her human form while the lines and colors move from bright and thin to dark and bold. It is a work of juxtapositions, sharp edges meeting soft curves, deep blacks in symphony with soft pinks, and, in a knowing nod, the subject is surrounded by earlier Matisse works still resting on their canvases. It is, in this way, not so much a portrait of Lydia as it is of Matisse’s studio, a way to capture his lifestyle before he changed it again, as he did so many times in his wild and storied career.