Henri Matisse
French, 1869 - 1954
Moorish Woman (The Raised Knee) - Femme mauresque (Le Genou levé), August 1922-February 1923
Oil on canvas
In the 1920s, Matisse moved away from the radicalism of his early Fauve canvases. Colors became more subdued, even naturalistic, and he began to paint the traditional academic subject of odalisques—or harem women. Popularized during the colonial era by French artists like Jean-Léon Gérôme, odalisque pictures typically embody a European fantasy of exotic, non-Western sexuality. Here, Matisse poses a European model, Henriette Darricarrère, in Moorish garb; the head scarf and masklike face seem designed to emphasize the figure's unknowability.
