As the artist’s biographer, Lawrence Gowing, noted, “there was a period when the naked female body became the constant plot of Matisse”. However, the artist himself once remarked: “The figure interests me much more than a still-life or landscape.” This is evident in his paintings. For the same odaliskam, for example, sitting or lying in fancy sensual poses.
But “Pink Nude” is “made” completely different. In this case, we see in front of us a huge, reduced to the simplest forms, a female body that fills almost the entire space of the canvas. For this picture, Russian emigrant Lydia Delektorskaya posed for Matisse, first companion Madame Matisse, then an assistant of the artist, then his model and her beloved.
It was she who made 22 photographs illustrating the individual stages of the master’s work on this picture, the process of searching for a composition and the transformation of forms. As these photos prove, originally “Pink Nude” was conceived by Matisse in a more realistic manner.
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