Jay Fisher

The two women is another one, an important work to look at in the same time. So you know, we are still in the 1907-1908-1909 period. And Matisse is obviously trying a lot of different things. One thing that we can see when we look at Matisse’s sculpture and his drawings and his prints, is that he liked to work in different mode. So he did something as distinctive as The Serpentine, but as linear and abstracted as The Serpentine is, The Two Women seems much more chunky and about a solid kind of modeling. You could see they are by the same artist, no doubt about that, but he doesn’t have it all the same objective. What’s interesting with The Two Women is that he is again working from a photograph. As you look at the photograph of these two women, you can see how Matisse must’ve loved it, because of the way that there are pose together.

And you can see what the front looks like and the back looks like, but they’re also relating to one another, it’s an affectionate pose. It’s one where the two are actually looking at each other. When you look at the sculpture I feel that he’s exaggerated the character of the figures, he made them a lot rougher. I think he’s exaggerated the buttocks, exaggerated the torso, you very much see something that’s modeled. And you can again feel Matisse’s hand, his fingers and his thumb actually modeling this volume, these two figures. You feel the musculature sort of moving in and out as you walk around the sculpture.