The Blue Nude III - 1952
Private collection
52.5" x 31.5"

The series of paintings, which are known as the blue nudes, were painted between 1952 and 53 using the gouache découpage method. They illustrate how provocative a simple design can be. Matisse used simple cut shapes to construct the images and uses the colour blue because of its obvious ties with nudity. The pieces of paper used in the découpage technique were all large and every shape in the picture was related to the others. This made the paintings perfectly balanced as is clear from The Blue Nude III.