Matisse’s practice was grounded in the reuse and repetition of themes. Whether painting a subject in quick succession or over time, he refined ideas and explored variations. This canvas is one of almost fifty made between 1914 and 1917, when the artist worked with an Italian model named Laurette. With her ability to dramatically shift mood and costume, Laurette played an instrumental role in Matisse’s artistic move from wartime, Cubist-inspired canvases to more naturalistic work that would reflect a larger postwar interest in artistic tradition. In this condensed composition, Matisse enveloped Laurette’s form in a warm black, which the artist used as the "color of light and not as a color of darkness."

The met

A cocreator, with Georges Braque, of Cubism, Picasso responded to many different artistic stimuli throughout in his career. Nude Standing by the Sea testifies to his contribution to Surrealism, a movement that aspired to tap into and visualize psychological states of being, often through the distortion of the human body. Here, Picasso rearranged anatomical parts and altered the proportions of a standing nude, thereby creating an ambiguous sculptural mass. This rather threatening bather perhaps reflects Picasso’s inner turmoil over the dissolution of his marriage to Olga Khokhlova and his affair with Marie-Thérèse Walter.

Oil on canvas

The met.

Y'all want this marked nsfw too???