Standing nude from the front 1910

Roger de La Fresnaye made this ‘Standing nude from the front’ with oil paint, but when is a bit of a mystery. I like that. It gives me space to think about the making of this painting as a conversation between artist and artwork. The artist has applied the paint in such a way to produce geometric shapes to model the body. The surface is quite flat and matte, and it’s likely that the paint was thinned to achieve this. The colour palette is tonal, working with warm browns and cool greys. In fact, the overall impression is quite muted, as though the painting is receding before your eyes, just like memories fade over time. Check out the area where the legs meet; it’s just one brush stroke of brown paint that suggests the inside of the left thigh. I find that so playful. This piece makes me think of Cezanne, who also played with the flattening of pictorial space. Painting, like any conversation, is a back and forth between past and present.