Matisse's Blue Nude IV

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Myriads of colors and shapes abound my sight as I try to take in and digest all the insatiable nights Matisse had spent fiddling with his stacks of cutouts, masterfully orchestrating them into parts of the canvas. However, out of all Matisse’s cutouts in the fourteen rooms of Tate Modern’s exhibit, Matisse’s Blue Nude IV is the most strikingly beautiful to me. Perhaps to many other viewers, colors intrigue them. To me, Matisse’s simplicity in Blue Nudes IV is even more intriguing. Walking into room nine from room eight, where I saw the Creole Dancer, I noticed an immense difference simply in the room itself. In room nine, the main colors I realized were just two: blue from the cutouts of Blue Nudes and the vanilla-white of the canvas and walls. …show more content…

As I exited room nine onto the next, I could not help but wonder if Matisse underwent sexual tension. I wondered if that was why he made the woman figure solely blue and why her body is contorted away from the viewer -- though she is physically up close, she also appears distant. Blue Nudes are not the only portraits of women created by Matisse. A previous painting also named The Blue Nude was created by Matisse 45 years before he made the cutouts. From the dialogue between Matisse’s assistant Jacqueline Duhême, and Juliette Rizzi and Flavia Frigeri in Henri Matisse: The Cut-Outs, it seems as if Matisse desires control over women. Does Matisse feel threatened by women? Could the woman figure perhaps be Jacqueline Duhême herself? After all, Jacqueline Duhêm, who also sporadically modeled for him, tells Rizzi and Frigeri that Matisse enjoyed more of his time with her instead of his other model Lydia Delectorskaya. Comparing Blue Nude IV to his past paintings and even to his past cutouts, Matisse’s abstract expressionism grows clearer. Blue Nude IV was finished two years before Matisse passed away. His cutout, The Parakeet and The Mermaid, incorporates a similar blue nude which represents the mermaid. In this cutout, however, he brings natural elements into the picture, transitioning from solitude (Blue Nude IV) to livelihood. According to Tate Modern’s information guide, Matisse’s frail condition prevented him from venturing outdoors, leading him to create his own

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