Young Girl Leaning on Her Elbow

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HENRI MATISSE

French, 1869 – 1954

Young Girl Leaning on Her Elbow (Jeune Fille Accoudée), 1947

Pen and ink on paper

Bequest of Gertrude Perrin

1999.004

Henri Matisse was born in Le Cateau-Cambrésis, France. Though he is most well known for his brightly colored and vivid paintings, he was also a masterly draftsman who drew continuously throughout his artistic life. Jeune Fille Accoudée is typical of his fluid and elegant ink drawings. The young girl, too, is characteristic of his pensive female subjects, who seem unaware of the artist’s penetrating gaze.

Liberty Bassett '22

Matisse was born in 1869 in a small commune in France. He worked in a variety of artistic media: painting, sculpting, and printmaking. Underlying all of these—he was a draughtsman. Though famed as a painter, drawing was the one medium that he continued throughout his entire artistic career. Drawing, he made clear in everything he wrote about his practice—was central to his art

Matisse originally studied law, and it wasn’t until 1889 that he began to paint. At first, he mainly did still-lifes and was influenced by artists like Chardin, Poussin, and Manet to experiment with traditional styles.

By 1904, though, Matisse established himself as the leader of the Fauves, a group of artists who focused on vivid expression and non-naturalistic uses of color and who revolutionized twentieth-century art . Matisse, himself, experimented with colors, forms, and space, with the result of shifting the perception of artistic styles. He also sought continually to achieve balance, purity, and serenity through his art, and did so through simplification and the pushing of boundaries of representation. It is in this context that drawing was so central to his perception of art making. Matisse felt that drawing was essential to training a painter and used it to help him coordinate his own hand, eye, and mind to discover the true essence of a subject and create thousands of works. He viewed pure line drawing as the most direct way to communicate emotion about motifs and subjects, using the lines to create space, form, volume, light, texture, and even movement. A number of works were created in almost life-like sizes, most notably his portraiture drawings, thus truly capturing the essence of the person.

Certainly, The seated woman was a motif that Matisse turned to repeatedly throughout his career. It was especially prominent in the late 1930’s. Earlier versions of the theme can be understood as the artist’s first thoughts on what became one of Matisse’s most famous works Le Chant 1938, commissioned by Nelson A Rockefeller, and now in the Collection of Joe Lewis, (on long term loan to the Museum of fine Arts, Houston).

Le Chant is a work made to be hung over a fireplace mantle, hence the square block at the bottom. On the left side is an earlier Jeune Fille drawing that appears to have been continuously redrawn evidenced by the smudging of the charcoal. This draw eventually served as the model for the figure in the upper right hand corner of Le Chant. The similar pose, and almost identical skirt and blouse show just how prominent the Young Girl Leaning became in Matisse’s repertoire.

The Muscarelle drawing of The Young Girl Leaning on her Elbow was done in 1947. A simple but large drawing done in pen and ink on paper; it is reminiscent of those earlier works. His drawing presents a young girl, leaning on her elbow with her hand covering her mouth gazing off into the distance. The depiction extends to the girl's waist and she wears several bits of decorative jewelry. Matisse makes sure our focus is on her gaze. This work is typical of Matisse’s ink drawings in subject and technique, it presents a youthful model with a pensive gaze by means of fluid and elegant lines. The simplicity of subject and technique are exquisitely matched. They reflect the ease of this composition and manner of drawing; for such works Matisse would typically create by drawing the model without looking at the easel. That direct gaze of the artist and his freedom of expression is evident here. Notably though, the model seems unaware of the artist’s penetrating gaze.

Though this is a portrait of a person about whom we know little , nonetheless the girl is shown as a particular individual—self contained, perhaps even self absorbed. We are left to wonder about the girl’s story, what brought her together with the artist. Was she a professional model, an acquaintance, a friend; and what is she thinking about as she gazes into the distance. This almost life-sized drawing invites the viewer to step into the model’s shoes, to glance around the space they are in and direct their line of sight to their surroundings. So when you come to view this work either in person or virtually, be sure to glance around at the exhibit as a whole, and stop to consider art as well-being, and the influence of art on the individual—as artist, model, or viewer.

Liberty Bassett '22

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