Nude Lying

1931　Oil on canvas
96.9cm x 162.2cm

Leonard FOUJITA (FUJITA Tsuguharu)

1886, Tokyo – 1968, Switzerland

Leonard Foujita (Fujita Tsuguharu) moved to France in 1913. In 1920s, when seeking his own art style, he established a mode of depicting nudes with fine lines against milky-white backgrounds, and gained great popularity and acclaim in Paris. This piece embodies his trademark characteristics such as the painted surface, sleek line drawing as if tracing a body’s outline, and precisely rendered shadows of cloth and background.
The work depicts a female nude lying on white bedsheets, bending her upper body downward and exposing her front. From her features, the model seems to be Madeleine, his wife at the time. Her pose, with legs crossed, long blonde hair hanging down, and left arm extended to the floor reference Nightmare (1781) by the Swiss painter Henry Fuseli.
Compared with the lady engulfed in a nightmare yet expressed rather erotically in Fuseli’s work, the model in Foujita’s work looks relaxed, with a peaceful expression, and is covered by his distinctive milky-white color. A cat sitting close to her feet stares at us, and appears to be guarding the room instead of the vulnerable lady with her eyes closed.