Odalisque, Harmony in Red Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Odalisque, Harmony in Red - Research Paper Example These paintings are infused with southern light, bright colors, and a profusion of decorative patterns. They emanate a hothouse atmosphere suggestive of a harem†.2 The painting’s dimension is noted as 15 1/8 x 21 5/8 in. (38.4 x 54.9cm). As exemplified through the title, the predominant colors seen in the painting are red, with other colors ranging from white, yellowish orange, lavender, shades of gray, pink, green, and brown. The focal image is the reclining figure of a woman, researched to be â€Å"Henriette Darricarrià ¨re (born 1901), a young woman skilled in the arts of ballet, piano, violin, and painting who lived near Matisses studio†. 3 Viewers are given a glimpse of the model’s exposed left breast; yet, the rest of her body as skimpily covered with a white thin overcoat. The model’s skin illuminates as she lounges in a peaceful stature with her eyes closed and her left arms raised where her hands are noted to rest just beneath her left cheeks. Both her ankles are adorned with foot anklets, one in green emerald color (right ankle) and the other in intermittent colors of yellow and brown. The background is predominantly red, with the walls seemingly covered in geometric triangular patterns. A gray side table rests beside the bed and another oval yellow table with similar decorative figure in the same shade positioned beside it. Matisse’s style in painting was noted to be diverse. As explicitly noted, â€Å"Matisses painting moves quite freely from one style to another, from an almost naturalist, contoured technique, in which the play of light and shade is translated into classic perspective, to a concept in which large flat areas of colour dispense with volume and offer themselves up for audacious ventures into geometric, even abstract, forms†. 4 The geometric patterns shown in the painting evidently proved the contoured technique and effectively manifested binges of naturalism and realism in