Focus on La Négresse and analyze the Subject or Inspiration.
La Négresse may be inspired by Josephine Baker, a black American dancer whose popularity reached its height in Paris during the 1920s and 1930s. One of Baker's famous outfits was a skirt made from bananas, which Matisse may be invoking in the orange-yellow forms around the figure's waist. Baker's association with jazz music may have also inspired Matisse, who had previously designed a book titled Jazz (1947). Matisse's depiction has been criticized as reiterating "racialized clichés in the enlarged belly and hips." Others have proposed that Matisse presented black women as beautiful.Other scholars propose that the figure may be of another famous dancer, Yvette Chauviré. Matisse had created an earlier work about a dancer (Creole Dancer, 1950) that art critic Louis Aragon identified as Katherine Dunham, who Matisse had seen perform. The work may also be an imagined dancer or amalgamation of the previously discussed figures.
Katherine Dunham bananas Jazz jazz music Louis Aragon Josephine Baker Paris Yvette Chauviré