Seated Female Nude 1940

Editor: Here we have Vilhelm Lundstrom's "Seated Female Nude," painted in 1940 with acrylic paint. It strikes me as both bold and unsettling, with the stark colours and almost Cubist fragmentation of the figure. How do you interpret this work, what do you see? Curator: For me, this piece whispers secrets about seeing and feeling, not just looking. Lundstrom seems less interested in depicting the female form accurately, and more keen on revealing raw emotions and perceptions. Think about how he deconstructs the face; it’s almost like a child's drawing, yet filled with potent intensity. It's a Fauvist fever dream! Does it evoke any particular feelings in you? Editor: It’s certainly intense, a little shocking. I can see the Fauvist influence, the bold colours are almost aggressive. It almost feels like he’s taken apart what a "nude" should be. I keep wondering, why those colors and shapes, specifically? Curator: I suspect the colours were more about *feeling* than matching reality. See the unexpected flashes of pink, and stark dividing lines...it’s less about representing flesh, and more like carving out emotion with pure pigment. Do you think it challenges traditional notions of beauty? Editor: Definitely! It almost seems to push against any conventional expectations of what a nude painting is, that a female figure should be, and tries to capture something else. Curator: Precisely! He seems to reject prettiness. I come back to my original thoughts on sight and feeling - by stripping down the representational aspect of the painting, Lundstrom demands we, the viewers, bring our feelings and fill in the visual blanks. He wasn’t interested in pleasing the eye, was he, but in stimulating…something deeper, truer, rawer, in ourselves. Editor: I love that - thanks. This helps see, feel, this in an entirely new light.