Liggende akt med hevede ben 1919 - 1924

Edvard Munch made this watercolour painting of a reclining nude, her legs in the air. Look at how the body is rendered in these transparent washes, how the figure seems to emerge from the white of the paper, as if the paper is the ground of being itself. I imagine Munch, on the one hand, thinking about the tradition of nude painting, and on the other hand, really in the moment, trying to feel the weight of the body, and how it relates to the space around it. I love how the blue becomes like an outline, anchoring the figure in the pictorial space. There is a kind of awkwardness to the pose – it is vulnerable and open. And I think that openness, that vulnerability, is part of what makes Munch such a compelling artist; he is unafraid to show us his own raw feelings.