Henri Matisse was born in France in 1869, and before he wanted to be an artist he wanted to study law. He had no interest in art until after he got his degree in 1889. Upon returning home, he took drawing classes before going to work. That winter, Matisse grew ill and during his recovery, took up painting. After persuading his father that he wanted to abandon law, he finally got the support from his parents to study painting in Paris (Watkins).

His first glimpse of moderate success came in 1896, when his painting, The Reader, was selected to be displayed in the Salon de la Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts. Following this success, Matisse began to experiment with other forms of art in an attempt to “establish himself as a modern artist” (Watkins). He would spend his summers in Bell-lle, off the coast of Brittany, where he took a great interest in Van Gogh, and adopted an “Impressionist plein-air technique: pale grounds, broken brushwork, bright colour, and informality of composition" (Watkins).

His return to Paris after that summer marked a turning point in his personal life. He left his mistress of three years, Caroline Joblaud (who he a daughter with and also posed in The Reader and Dinner Table) and married Amelie Parayre. Like Cezanne, Matisse also studied under Impressionist Camille Pissarro.  Matisse spent time in London and Corsica and moved beyond Impressionism, exploring “different approaches to landscape painting, from conservative, well-constructed compositions to exuberant small-scale experiments in the expressive manipulation of colour” (Watkins). Although he had little money, we he bought several works from Cézanne, Van Gogh, Gauguin, and Rodin and studied how they designed the human figure (Watkins).

The major breakthrough in Matisse's career occurred during the "Fauvism" movement, which was based on wild, solid colors that are inconsistent with the subject’s natural colors. His work generated much criticism, "for Matisse and his colleagues were generally young compared to the established critics and the random style was new and seemingly showed no outward proof of skill or professionalism" (Galenson).  Matisse believed his art was not to be primarily concerned with observation, but with feeling and emotion.

From 1910-17, Matisse took part in the Cubism movement, in which his primary concern was“to convey the dreamlike atmosphere of brilliant light and colour enveloping both figures and objects” (Watkins). Through cubism, Matisse was able to explore different styles of art such as oil paintings and charcoal drawings. The famous Portrait of Yvonne Landsberg was a full-scale charcoal portrait of a young woman.  During Mlle. Landsberg’s sittings, her husband commented that Matisse’s painting began as a “strikingly recognizable portrait” of Yvonne, but as the painting developed, the evidence of her physical qualities lessened and her spiritual qualities began to dominate the space (Klein 168). Matisse had exaggerated the shape of her figure, emphasizing her curves and giving her a stronger presence in the scene (Trapp 57). The method in which Matisse added the arcs around Landsberg was considered by some writers to be a spontaneous gesture, yet the careful precision and repetition with which he drew the lines suggests the exact opposite. In two separate interviews, Matisse was known to give two different interpretations of the painting; one claim that the lines around the figure were supposed to emphasize her curvy figure, and another claim comparing it to a musical harmony, where the figure is the single note and the lines are the overtones (Klein 168). Matisse’s intentions were not to give a single interpretation of the portrait, but rather leave it up to the individual to critique. The ambiguity and apparent spontaneity of the painting adds intrigue and mystery, further solidifying its identity as a product of Cubism.