Figure with Bouquet

Discussion

FROM THE BARNES FOUNDATION’S CATALOG

Matisse painted Figure with Bouquet in the summer of 1939 while working with the Hungarian model Wilma Javor. Models were essential to the development of Matisse's pictures, as he wrote that same summer, "My models, human figures, are never just 'extras' in an interior. They are the principal theme of my work. I depend absolutely on my model." The figure's absorption in her book parallels the artist's absorption in the creation of the work. Matisse left traces of earlier drafts of the composition visible: the ghost of the figure's right foot and calf indicates a prior position closer to the chest, and the vestigial outline of the chest reveals its previously diagonal orientation.

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