Female Nude

This striking nude is one of several painted by Amedeo Modigliani between 1916 and 1917. Beyond the reclining figure's apparent gracefulness and tranquillity, the painting still retains some of its original provocation.
Like Paul Gauguin, whose work he admired, Modigliani incorporated stylistic elements taken from cultures outside Europe. The woman's elongated head echoes the Egyptian, African and Oceanic sculptures he had studied at the ethnographic museum in Paris. This approach challenged the Western tradition of ideal beauty. The model's flushed face, scratched- out strands of hair and the raw brushwork also went against convention by heightening her sensuality. The depiction of pubic hair was shocking at the time. Police even closed a 1917 exhibition of Modigliani's nudes at a commercial gallery in Paris on the grounds of indecency.