The ''Blue Nudes'' is a series of collages, and related color
lithographs
Lithography () is a planographic method of printing originally based on the miscibility, immiscibility of oil and water. The printing is from a stone (lithographic limestone) or a metal plate with a smooth surface. It was invented in 1796 by ...
, by
Henri Matisse
Henri Émile Benoît Matisse (; 31 December 1869 – 3 November 1954) was a French visual arts, visual artist, known for both his use of colour and his fluid and original draughtsmanship. He was a drawing, draughtsman, printmaking, printmaker, ...
, made from paper cut-outs depicting nude figures in various positions. Restricted by his physical condition after his surgery for stomach cancer, Matisse began creating art by cutting and painting sheets of paper by hand; these Matisse viewed as independent artworks in their own right. The ''Blue Nudes'' refers also to the editioned multiples based on the cut-outs. Matisse supervised the creation of these lithographs until his death in 1954.
''Blue Nude IV'', the first of the four nudes, took a notebook of studies and two weeks' work of cutting-and-arranging before the resulting artefact satisfied him. In the event, Matisse finally arrived at his favorite pose, for all four works—intertwining legs and an arm stretching behind the neck. The posture of the nude woman is like the posture of a number of seated nudes made in the first years of the 1920s, ultimately, the posture derives from the reposed figures of ''
Le bonheur de vivre''.
The second in the series, ''Blue Nude II'', was completed in 1952.
Despite the flatness of paper, the cut-outs reflect Matisse's earlier sculptures in their tangible, relief-like quality, especially the sense of volume created by the overlapping of the cut-outs. ''Blue Nude I'', in particular, can be compared with sculptures such as ''La Serpentine'', from 1909.
The color blue signified distance and volume to Matisse. Frustrated in his attempts to successfully marry dominant and contrasting tones, the artist was moved to use solid slabs of single color early in his career, a technique that became known as
Fauvism
Fauvism ( ) is a style of painting and an art movement that emerged in France at the beginning of the 20th century. It was the style of (, ''the wild beasts''), a group of modern artists whose works emphasized painterly qualities and strong col ...
. The painted gouache cut-outs that compose the ''Blue Nudes'' were inspired by Matisse's collection of African sculpture and his visit to
Tahiti
Tahiti (; Tahitian language, Tahitian , ; ) is the largest island of the Windward Islands (Society Islands), Windward group of the Society Islands in French Polynesia, an overseas collectivity of France. It is located in the central part of t ...
, in 1930. He required another twenty years and a post-operative period of incapacity, before Matisse synthesized those African and Polynesian influences into this seminal series.
After his death, the works were printed in a special 1956 issue of ''
Verve'', entitled "Les Derniers Oeuvres de Matisse", though only the ones finished before his death bear his signature.
The series was later shown at the
Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) from October 2014 to February 2015 as part of the exhibition ''Henri Matisse: The Cut-Outs''.
See also
*
List of works by Henri Matisse
References
External links
*
''Blue Nude'' (Souvenir de Biskra)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Blue Nudes
1952 paintings
Henri Matisse
Nude art
Collection of the Musée National d'Art Moderne