Oh darlings, Odalisques

The quiet sexuality of Matisse's Odalisques! The beauty of form, the calmness of flesh, the centrality of woman!

This post was inspired by a little answer I gave on Google+ to somebody talking about the figure of the Odalisque in Matisse's paintings.

But I wanted to add more of my own thoughts, and that little reply did not serve the purpose, since it was a little old. So here I go again, Matisse paintings my guide, as almost always.

Grand Odalisque a la culotte bayarde
via www.natashabarr.com

Odalisque with red culottes
via www.artchive.com

Odalisque
via www.henri-matisse.net

The great thing about these lascivious, inviting creatures is the extent to which they blend with the context. The texture of the painting is so complex, so decorative, the patches of flesh surprise the eye. You rest your eyes on the woman flesh with the pleasure of having found a spot of calmness. A true tribute to woman's body.
Then what's equally fascinating is the realism of almost all Matisse settings and of his forms. He took pains at arranging the subject in a context that was then reproduced in detail. When that was not the case, he placed the bodies in those intriguingly Matisse-esque forms that undulate and flow across the canvas like water.

We have, for this, the testimony of George Brassai's photographs. They captured Matisse painting, drawing, but almost always contemplative at the same time: as if daydreaming.

Brassai captured the attention of both artist and model
via www.modebulb.com

I love this entire series of images focused on Matisse's work on nudes (like the Odalisques, of course). Photographs by George Brassai, Cartier Bresson, and Man Ray, among others. They view the artist in the plenitude of his own statement:

"My models are not some pieces of pottery in a room. They are the main theme of my work. I am entirely dependent on my models."

You could tell it from how they sit, how they capture light, how they encapsulate form. Even an untrained eye can see how these attributes migrate to the Matisse cutouts representing woman forms.

But more about this in a future post.

Matisse, that mystery

I take Matisse to be a mystery. That which exists beyond the hand, beyond the eye, beyond all sensations. I don't want to sound haughty, nor saccharine, nor academically inclined towards loving what everyone else has fallen in love with. But Henri Matisse's paintings, cutouts, drawings, sculptures, form a universe of their own - an ontology where everything spins in one direction, without stirring up the chaos too much but generating an interesting harmony of its own. 

Apollinaire, who professed not to like confusions, prefaced an interview with Matisse by setting the record straight in his usually radical, poetic manner:

There is no connection between painting and literature [...] The aim of Matisse is plastic expression in the same way that lyric expression is the aim of the poet.

No way one could put it in more general terms. But, confusion or no confusion, I'm sure Apollinaire did mean to see the two facing each other. And when poetry and painting stand adjacent there's something that migrates, something that takes flight, something that travels as if by boat, as if by superfast broadband. And that, I believe, is mystery.

Don't ask for definitions! And yet - mystery is what resists any solidity of evidence, any show of hands, any record that brags authenticity. Take this video, for instance.

It's an affidavit. It lets Matisse talk about the aim of his art: not to create beauty, not to let colour on the page, but to change the very quality of paper. Maximum materiality; return to fundamentals. There's so much handling of facts here. The clip is factual as in having-been-there, having-heard-him, having-filmed-that, having-had-Matisse-in-front-of-one's-eyes. But one may wonder: How do we know for sure that paper changes? How much of what Matisse says here is true and what's just made-up stuff, for the interviewer to record?

Matisse speaks. And in speaking he, like any artist, sets up traps with words, with voice. Not with the voice of that Cartesian demon intent of fooling everyone with the view of enjoying the good laugh that will crown the joke, but with the voice of the artist who transforms what he touches. When transformation takes place, the most factual of facts withers like a flower lacking nourishment.
And what do we do then? What?
I have a guess: we contemplate. We look at a Matisse drawing, a painting, a cutout - and we do it in silence. In so much silence, we can hear ants whispering to the stars. Raymond Radiguet, once Matisse's contemporary, hailed that teacher who asked the class to cover their mouths while looking at works of art. She wanted, in her honesty, to teach them how to admire without words.

Bonheur de vivre, The happiness of living well
Source: Ross Skoggard

But this is a blog!

Words will come and go, come and go, come and go, because they travel. Words too are mysteries, aren't they? Otherwise would Apollinaire have placed them face-to-face with painting?
And so, while acknowledging this paradox, we'll speak of our admiration. We'll try to learn to contemplate without words - it's a promise. But when contemplation is finished we'll let words come flushing in, flood-like, to fill the space where Matisse's paintings or Matisse's cutouts have already taken everything over, to the last inch.
Because we might have a few things to say about Matisse, mightn't we?