Reclining Nude on a Pink Couch 1919

Curator: This is Henri Matisse's "Reclining Nude on a Pink Couch," painted in 1919. Editor: She looks like a daydream floating on a sugared almond! There's something incredibly serene, almost suspended, about this piece. Curator: Matisse painted this in Nice, during a period when he favored more intimate domestic scenes. We can observe here an experimentation with color, using flattened perspective and a complex interplay of patterns. Editor: Patterns! Yes! It's a dizzying dance between that intense floral green carpet and the cool abstraction of the white walls. The couch offers a moment of respite with that calm and very inviting pink. And what I find striking, it doesn't objectify her in that traditional sense. There is such grace in repose. Curator: Indeed. While the reclining nude has a long history in Western art, Matisse departs from the traditional idealized form. This nude possesses a certain weightiness. The overall composition with that rather daring carpet choice seems designed to disrupt rather than to seduce. The space almost pushes forward, rejecting illusion. Editor: Pushes forward, that’s great way to describe that dizzying tension. As a painter myself, the bravery he had mixing those "clashing" colors is something I both admire and slightly fear! But he completely made it. In any case, there's a tender humanness there that resonates beyond purely visual pleasure. Curator: Well said. The work marks an important period for Matisse. He found that interplay between figure and ground, abstraction and representation, continued to evolve, as well as the complex relations between private art making and a rising cultural fascination with the "exotic." Editor: Exactly, that push and pull, that constant visual questioning... Makes this a reclining nude that's wide awake, ironically enough. Curator: Indeed, not a scene simply of relaxation but of complex visual negotiations. Editor: Absolutely, I walk away from this with a smile and some fresh color courage!