Unlike Maillol, Lehmbruck, or Matisse, who relied on copying nature in drawing the figure and emphasized the rounded, three-dimensional quality of form even in their graphics, Armitage wanted "to express an idea as simply as possible." Reclining Figure summarizes the basic shape and appendages of the human body and stresses flatness since it is a study for a bronze relief. Armitage also accentuates the horizontal and the vertical because "We walk vertically and rest horizontally. . . . We live in a world of verticals and horizontals."
