Circé 1934

This is Henri Matisse's ‘Circé’, and it's made with these gorgeous, almost ghostly graphite lines on paper. Can you imagine Matisse with his stick of graphite, feeling his way around these forms? It's all bodies, right? A jumble of torsos and limbs. I love the kind of tentative quality of the shading. There's so much that's unsaid or unresolved. It reminds me of a drawing that's searching for something, where the artist is using the process to discover the subject, rather than illustrate something already fully formed in their mind. Take that line that defines the leg at the top – the way it confidently swells and tapers, it gives you everything you need. I bet Giacometti was looking at Matisse. It reminds me that all artists are in conversation, pinching ideas, and generally keeping the thing we call art alive! And for me, this drawing is about opening things up, not pinning them down, which is very modern.