Matisse's Dance
Although Natalie Safir's poem based on Matisse's Dance contains overlyingfeminist symbolism and tone, "Matisse's Dance" is a formalist response tothe impressionist masterpiece. The original painting depicts a ring of fivenaked women dancing on a mound of fertile green grass. Behind them a deeproyal blue sky complements the fleshy figures of the dancing bodies.Matisse's rendering of form and color is extraordinarily simple andquintessentially impressionistic: these are not realistic depictions ofdancing women but rather are the artist's personal reflections on thesubject. Safir's description of the movement and momentum in the paintingcorresponds directly to Matisse's images of the women, whose spiral dancebrings the painting to life. Even without Safir's poetical interpretationof Matisse's "Dance," the painting stands alone as being a feminist work.The artist's composition is a celebration of the female form and offeminist power. These are five women who dance alone, without malepartners. Moreover, their bodies are rendered with simple lines and brightcolors, which tend to symbolize rather than graphically depict the femaleform. The woman in the foreground is so deliberately stretching her arm,
Therefore, when Safir states that the unravelingof the dance would create a "black sun" in that space, she is putting intowords what Matisse states with his paint brush. Furthermore, Matisse manages to continue the feeling of continuitybetween the women by not permitting any blue or green space to interferewith her stretch. As Safir puts it, she must reach the hand "before the dance /Unravels and a black sun swirls from that space. " She is describing Matisse's inclusion of extra paint at the end ofher hands. Becausehe shows five dancing women, rather than mixed-sex figures, shows thatMatisse himself associates this type of dance with women. The line "slender figure stretchingtoo hard" is not simply a subjective impression by the poet. Therefore, her poem serves asan extended caption or a lyrical description of "The Dance," not as afeminist or psychoanalytic symbolic interpretation of that painting inspite of those elements contained within the poem. " Like horses dashing through the air, thewomen in the painting seem to float fluidly off the ground. The colors Matisse uses are vibrant,indicative of the joy that swirls between the dancing women. Furthermore, the girl would be"frightened," because the motion of the dancers is probably so swift as tocause some of them to fall. Instead,they are dancing to affirm their female sexual energy, that which ties themto the natural world and to each other. The subjectmatter itself, a dance, implies sheer joy, a celebration of life. Central toboth poem and painting is the "break in the circle dance of naked women. In order to spinas they do, the women must hold hands. The poet'sreference to "ripeness" also hints at possible pregnancy: "grass moundscurve ripely.
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Acceptance Essays
