Nu renversé près d’une table Louis XV 1929

This is one of Henri Matisse's drawings, Nu renversé près d’une table Louis XV, we don't know exactly when it was made or where! You can see the artist has worked and reworked lines, redrawing the figure's position, testing out the angle of the body, its form, and its placement within the space of the image. I can imagine Matisse in his studio, circling the model, charcoal stick in hand, thinking about the relationship of line to form, how the economy of marks can suggest volume, weight, light, and shadow. Look at the confidence of the lines, quick and gestural. Matisse is thinking about Ingres and the whole tradition of life drawing but he's also charting a new path for the image. He's simplifying and exaggerating, finding his own way of capturing the human form.