ABSTRACT
At first glance the art of Gaston lachaise Lachaise looks familiar. The image of the mature female nude that occupies a central and animating position in Lachaise's oeuvre forms an obvious link in the chain of sensibility that leads from the audacious watercolor drawings of Rodin to Matisse's "Blue Nude" and the later odalisques. The truth is that the art of Lachaise stands apart in a way it has sometimes embarrassed art criticism to speak of directly. If one compares it with the work of Matisse, for example, it is clear there is something more personal and obsessive in Lachaise's vision. Lachaise is one of those artists who are especially concerned to keep the particular and the absolute in a close and easy commerce with each other. Yet our understanding of Lachaise's art and our pleasure in the vicissitudes of his sculptural vision can only begin—or end—with a conception so monumental in size and finish.
