Henri Matisse

Matisse had taken a great interest in the rendering of the female form since early in his career. Drawn in 1931, Femme allongée is a prime example of the artist's extraordinary facility in depicting this subject matter with line drawing. 

In the present work, the model is seductively reclined in a manner reminiscent of the figures from his famed Odalisque series.  She boldly faces the viewer, her clothing draped across her body so that a bare shoulder is exposed here, a bangled arm there, her legs unabashedly revealed.  The sensitive nature of the graphite picks up the finest nuances of Matisse's hand, increasing the effect of volumetric modelling in the figure. The graceful lines of her body are carefully composed so that there is a perfect sense of balance across the horizontal axis of the sheet.