Reclining Female Nude – I 1912

Lovis Corinth made this drawing of a reclining female nude using confident lines. It looks like he was really going for it, you know? He wasn’t afraid of making a wrong move. I can picture him, his hand moving quickly, trying to capture the essence of the pose. I imagine he's trying to see the human form in a new way. The lines aren’t precious, but they are sure. Each one communicates a sense of weight, of flesh and bone, a groundedness. Think about how Corinth, in his time, must have been looking at the work of other artists, maybe even arguing with them in his head, trying to figure out what he wanted to say with his own work. He must have been really digging into the human body and what it means to be alive. Artists always build on what came before, and what will come after, it’s one big conversation.