Femme perse 1933

This is Henri Matisse’s, Femme perse, made with a pencil on paper. Look at how Matisse seems to draw around the form rather than fill it in, leaving a lot of the paper exposed. It’s almost as if he is feeling out the shape of the woman, allowing the process of drawing to guide him, which is how I like to approach my own work. The texture is really interesting. You can see the slight variations in the pressure of the pencil, how some lines are darker and more defined, while others are light and almost disappear into the paper. I'm drawn to the way he’s rendered the face, particularly the mouth and eyes. There’s a softness, an ambiguity that makes her feel alive and present. It’s like Matisse is searching for something, not just depicting a woman, but trying to capture something about her essence. I think of Picasso's drawings, there's a similar sense of searching, of not quite resolving the form, but finding something new in the attempt. Ultimately, it's the imperfection and ambiguity that makes this drawing so compelling.