The relationship between a figure and its background fascinated Matisse and he experimented with new, innovative ways of exploring this dynamic throughout his career. Matisse preferred to work from live models. His most constant model of the 1930s was Lydia Delectorskaya, and in this painting, we see how he transformed his depiction of her over the course of several months.

The photographs show Matisse continually making changes to the figure, most notably, the torso and limbs, in the first few months. In contrast to Matisse’s manipulation of the torso, the figure’s head and facial features initially remain unchanged. Only after he establishes the near-final look of the background, does Matisse return to the face to modify it. Early on, the figure’s form occupies a substantive portion of the foreground and middle ground, but over time it begins to dominate the space in a new, dramatic way.

In the final image the body's outline is smooth and fluid, enhancing the contrast of the large body against the grid pattern. The figure's pose adds to the sense of compressed space. The raised knee and elbow mirror each other while the two arms echo the horizontals and verticals of the grid, reinforcing the flatness of the painting. The head appears quite small in relation to the body, and interestingly, it can be seen as appearing on the same plane as the bent leg or as receding further back than in previous iterations of the work. The unexpected relationships between the large shapes and curves of the body and the smaller geometric grids of the flattened background along with the stark contrast in size and proportion contribute to the dynamism of the image.