Seated Nude

Following his Fauvist period, André Derain retained his need of compactness of the world of phenomena in his work. Nature, the body, the human face, and objects continued to attract him. He endeavoured to render all this in his paintings in combination with his knowledge of great masters. In the early 1920s, he left for Italy (the same as Picasso) where the classical world strengthened his commenced path to neoclassicism. Seated Nude is directly associated with Derain’s travel to Italy. The vividness is not formed by the arrangement into area and volume, but by the light cast from a single point. The painting gives a touch of the art of old masters, yet it is not far from chiaroscuro which was implemented in Derain’s later paintings.