The Flowing Hair

The Blue Nudes refer to a series of cut-outs by Henri Matisse completed in 1952. They represent seated female nudes, and are among Matisse’s final body of works. The pose he finally arrived at for all four works—intertwining legs and an arm stretching behind the neck—was his favorite. distance and volume to Matisse. Frustrated in his attempts to successfully marry dominant and contrasting tones, the artist was moved to use solid slabs of single color early in his career, a technique that became known as Fauvism.