Painting matches the absence of nuance in the yellow, red, blue, black and white colouring. Drawings have been hung on the red rear wall, as if to underline the significance of that medium for this painting. Nor does the flat arrangement permit any spatial sense. We cannot tell if the black area with criss-cross pattern is theįloor or a part of the seat. The woman in the long blue dress with white frills is sitting on an armchair or sofa with curlicued arm-rests like swans' necks. These lines define the flat, expansiveįorms but confer no relief or depth. The draughtsmanship of Lady in Blue is of an extreme precision: the fine white lines have been scratched out of the paint, the dark lines drawn with a fine brush or similar implement. Go well with my spontaneity - I relish knocking off some vast work in the space of a minute.' The new conventions of applying large zones of paint to express myself - nothing but localized colours with neither shadow nor relief, that are supposed to suggest light and spiritual space through their interactions.
He wrote to fellow-artist Pierre Bonnard: 'My drawing is what I need, since it expresses what is distinctive in my own feeling. In Lady in Blue, Matisse missed the balance he had achieved. The work, which was one of seven presented by Renoir at the first Impressionist exhibition in 1874, is often referred to as The Blue Lady (French: La Dame en. Woman with a Hat (Femme au chapeau), 1905.
