La grande odalisque / Big odalisque

When the painting "Big Odalisque" appeared in the Salon of 1819, Ingres received a hail of reproaches. One of the critics wrote that in “Odalisque” there is “no bones, no muscles, no blood, no life, no relief” ... Indeed, the author of “Odalisque” abandoned the living concreteness of its image, but instead created an image in which there is intimacy, mystery, and attractive exoticism of the East.

In 1813, Caroline Murat, Queen of Naples and sister of Napoleon, commissioned Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres for a new painting. The painting was never accepted by the client. Around 1819 Ingres sold the Grand Odalisque for 800 francs to the Count Pourtales, and in 1899 it was bought by the Louvre.
The reclining naked woman is depicted, as is often the case with Ingres, from the back. Her posture is full of bewitching femininity, and her body is amazingly flexible. In order to convey the refined grace of the odalisque, the beauty of the fluid contours of her body, the artist boldly violated the anatomical proportions.
The artist lovingly conveys the crumpled fabrics on the bed and the deep folds of the floral drapery hanging on the right; a fan of motley peacock feathers in his hand and bracelets on a thin wrist; a striped scarf with tassels and a gold hoop with a ruby clasp surrounded by pearls. All this is a worthy setting for a young body, like a precious stone.
The artist strove for the same harmony in his art, for the harmony of plastic forms, in which he saw a closeness to musical harmony. It was not for nothing that Ingres later said to his students: "If I could make you all musicians, you would win as painters." And yet his main means of expression remained the line. Ingres was a brilliant, miraculous draftsman. In nude images, his line seems especially clean and musical. In the Big Odalisque, the delicate beauty of the image is conveyed through the enchanting interweaving of perfect, truly musical contours.