Henri Matisse

Among all the subjects in Matisse's oeuvre, the odalisque is his best known and most beloved.  The allure of this exotic figure, often depicted in various states of nudity, was of insatiable appeal to the artist.  Throughout his career, Matisse devoted several compositions to images of this paradigm of female sensuality, depicting her seated in a richly upholstered armchair or reclining on a bed.  In this drawing from 1928, he has rendered not one but three of these temptresses, lounging in what appears to be an ornately decorated harem.  The setting for this drawing was most likely one of his hotel rooms in Nice, where the artist lived periodically throughout the 1920s.  Fascinated with both the textile patterns of the furniture and the wallpaper, as well as the curves and contours of the female body, Matisse is able to exercise several of his aesthetic predilections in this exquisite drawing.

Matisse often spoke of how the act of drawing was integral to his approach to oil painting, but it is important to realize that his compositions in pen and ink are complete works in their own right.  Ernst Gerhard Güse has written, "There is nothing provisional about his drawings: they are complete, finished works, resulting from an extended process of identification.  The line which encircles the objects supplied a final, conclusive definition.  Through the connection between the line and the artist's emotions, his inner life, the drawing becomes an act of assimilation, taking possession of nature" (Ernst Gerhard Güse, Matisse, Drawings and Sculpture, Munich, 1991, p. 10).