RECLINING WOMAN

© The Artist's Estate

RECLINING WOMAN 1924

Sir Matthew Smith (1879 – 1959)

Details

Dimension
54 X 65.4 CM
Media
OIL ON CANVAS
Accession number
P50

Summary

This painting belongs to the period when Smith returned to live in Paris from 1922 and is one of a succession of nudes that constituted one of the major achievements of his painting career. These works demonstrated an immediate, sensuous response to the model, a fusion of painterly skill and instinct in which the forms are given an almost sculptural amplitude. Colour is usually high-key with brilliant accents in details of features or jewellery, although this particular canvas shows a richer, more sombre palette than most at this time. Smith was not afraid to impose a heightened colour range at the expense of literal transcription and it is this quality which gives his work its strength, coupled with the spontaneity of the loose, rapid brush work, drawing with an assurance almost unique in England at the time.

Glossary

  • Canvas

    A piece of cloth woven from flax, hemp or cotton fibres. The word has generally come to refer to any piece of firm, loosely woven fabric used to paint on. Its surface is typically prepared for painting by priming with a ground.

  • Drawing

    The depiction of shapes and forms on a flat surface chiefly by means of lines although colour and shading may also be included. Materials most commonly used are pencil, ink, crayon, charcoal, chalk and pastel, although other materials, including paint, can be used in combination.

  • Painting

    Work of art made with paint on a surface. Often the surface, also called a support, is a tightly stretched piece of canvas, paper or a wooden panel. Painting involves a wide range of techniques and materials, along with the artist's intellectual concerns effecting the content of a work.