Nude on a Divan1918
A nude woman reclines across a brown divan against a russet-red wall, her body stretched so wide that her head is pushed into the upper corner and her legs run off the edge of the canvas. More about this work
About this work
A nude woman reclines across a brown divan against a russet-red wall, her body stretched so wide that her head is pushed into the upper corner and her legs run off the edge of the canvas. Modigliani’s reclining nudes of 1917–18 are among his best-known paintings, descendants of the Venuses of Giorgione, Titian and Manet but frankly modern in their directness: she looks straight out through almond-shaped eyes. Mottled, loosely brushed flesh tones glow against the warm reds, and the simplified contours turn the body into one long, flowing curve.
Written by Ochre Editions.
What you’re looking at
A nude woman lying across a brown divan in front of a russet-red wall is loosely painted with areas of mottled color in this horizontal composition. The woman fills the wide canvas so her head is angled into the upper left corner, and her legs extend off the right edge of the composition below the knees. Her long, oval face rests back against the couch, and she looks at us with slitted, almond-shaped eyes under dark, shallowly arched brows. She has a long, straight nose, flushed cheeks, a double chin, and her pink lips are closed. Her breasts fall to each side so we only see the pink nipple closer to us. She has a rounded belly and a triangle of brown hair at her groin. Her arms rest alongside her body. The couch has a low, upholstered arms sweeping down the sides. Black lines in the red wall behind the couch suggest molding or cabinetry. The artist signed the painting in the upper right corner, “modigliani.”
Description from the National Gallery of Art.
How it was made
- Oil paint
- Pigment ground in a drying oil, usually linseed. It dries slowly, so painters could blend on the canvas, build up thin translucent glazes, and rework a picture over weeks. Canvas replaced wooden panels in the 1500s because it is lighter and can be rolled.
Amedeo Modigliani
Italian, 1884–1920
Modigliani trained in Italy before moving to Paris in 1906, where he lived the precarious life of Montmartre and Montparnasse. Influenced by Cézanne, by African and ancient sculpture, and by his own work as a sculptor with Brâncuși’s encouragement, he developed a distinctive manner of elongated faces, almond eyes and long necks. His portraits of friends and fellow artists, among them Jacques and Berthe Lipchitz, and his reclining nudes date mainly from his last five years. He died of tuberculous meningitis at thirty-five.
Written by Ochre Editions.
Rights and the museum’s record
Public domain. The National Gallery of Art has dedicated this image to the public domain under CC0, so anyone may copy, adapt and use it, for any purpose, without asking. Our prints and files are reproductions made from the museum’s image; the museum doesn’t endorse them.
- Object number
- 1963.10.77
- Credit
- Courtesy National Gallery of Art, Washington
- Type
- Painting
- Licence
- CC0 1.0 Universal
- Museum record
- See it on the museum’s site
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