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• Odalisque Lying with Magnolias

• Henri Matisse

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• Odalisque couchée aux magnolias
  Painted in Nice, 1923
  Oil on canvas
  23 3/4 x 31 7/8 in. (60.5 x 81.1 cm.)
  
  Henri Matisse was the modernist heir par excellence to the Orientalist tradition in French art that Ingres and Delacroix established during the 19th century. Among the many lovely, sensual nudes that Matisse painted in Nice during the 1920s, Odalisque couchée aux magnolias may well mark the superlative classical moment in the artist’s treatment of this theme. This painting stands out in its consummate synthesis of the essential pictorial qualities that Matisse was exploring at this time and sought to instill in his art. The variety of visual delights, deriving from the attractive model, her costume and ambient décor, the balance and poise of the composition, the subtlety and resonance of the color harmonies all have been most impressively conceived and integrated.
  
  The artist’s evocation of a languorous, dreamy mood is irresistibly absorbing, all the more effective for the manner in which he has imparted to the odalisque and her environment a solid, palpable, and vital presence. Matisse rarely cared to draw attention to the finesse of his brushwork, but he appears to have been especially pleased to showcase the skill of his painterly touch in Odalisque couchée aux magnolias—the effects he educed are a joy in themselves. His overall conception is symphonic, clearly and delectably orchestrated. All parts contribute seamlessly, effortlessly, to a concerted summation, suffused throughout with the wondrous aura of a glowing inner light.
  There are other odalisques from this period whose partial or full nudity is more conspicuous and suggestive, but none in which the girl’s pose is as alluring as seen here, yet in the delicate and tasteful manner of which Matisse had become a master. “What might have been explicit eroticism in the image,” Alfred H. Barr, Jr. wrote of Odalisque couchée aux magnolias, “seems diffused into a luxurious, generalized sensuality, intimate yet objective” (op. cit., 1951, p. 211). Even the model’s expression has been carefully and individually characterized, as if also to appeal warmly and directly to the viewer. While indulging in feelings of self-contentment and engaged in reverie, the odalisque casts her gaze toward the artist, whose off-picture role as painter/observer is happily transferred to the viewer, allowing the latter, initially a fascinated voyeur, to enter this scene.
  
  Matisse would have given much of the credit to the young woman who served as his model, his favorite during this period, whom he most often employed—Henriette Darricarrère. She worked with the artist from 1920 to 1927. “During her seven years of modeling, Henriette excelled at role-playing and had a theatrical presence that fueled the evolution of Matisse's art,” Jack Cowart has written. “She adopted the subject roles easily and could express the moods and atmosphere of Matisse's settings without losing her own presence or her own strong appearance. Her distinctive physical features—a sculpturesque body and a finely detailed face with a beautiful profile—are evident in many of the artist's paintings, sculptures, and works on paper” (exh. cat., op. cit., 1986, p. 27). Hilary Spurling called Henriette "a living sculpture. The finely modeled planes of her torso and limbs caught the light like [Matisse's] clay figures… Her body articulated itself like a cat’s into compact rounded volumes—breast, belly, haunch, hip, calf, knee” (Matisse the Master: A Life of Henri Matisse, Volume Two, New York, 2005, p. 270).
  
  Odalisque couchée aux magnolias was painted in Nice during 1923; Matisse sent it to the Salon d’Automne in November. The artist spent the first six months of the year in Nice, before returning to his family residence in Issy-les-Moulineaux, outside Paris, for the summer. The magnolia blossoms that lend their name to this painting were apparently pinned to the screen behind the odalisque, suggesting that Matisse painted the canvas during the late spring or early summer. His dealers Josse and Gaston Bernheim-Jeune purchased the painting on 17 December 1923, the day following the closing of the Salon, reserving it for his personal collection (Matisse’s invoice is reproduced in op. cit., 1995, p. 1164).

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Other paintings by Henri Matisse:

The Open Window

Landscape with Cypresses and Olive Trees around Nice

Nymph and Red Fauna

Bouquet, Chinese Vase