Nude Woman Standing with Her Arms Raised, 1909

With expressive verve, the French painter Georges Rouault (1871–1958) presents a woman’s posturing ample body as a frontal nude. The full-frame female figure’s face looks resentful; the bulging body shapes give her an intense appearance. The dark background and the tightly circumscribed picture space make her stand out even more. Rouault’s style of representation meant a complete break with the beauty ideals of 19th-century female nude painting. Coming from the circle of the French Fauvists, the artists ridded himself of the constraints of any and all formal categories. In choosing his subjects, he focused on socially marginalized figures like prostitutes, artistes, and clowns. At the same time, it becomes clear that Rouault rebelled against aestheticized beauty per se, as was characteristic of French Expressionist painting at large.

AK, 2021