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Nudes (I)

Modigliani had painted female nudes from the time of his arrival in Paris. His first works were notably expressive and conformed to the Symbolist idea of the female body as a source of sin. Later, his nudes lost this moralising content and embraced a Mediterranean sensuality.

In 1917 and with the consolidation of his mature style, Modigliani began his popular series of reclining nudes on the request of his friend and new dealer, Léopold Zborowski, who aimed to sell them to collectors interested in the newest type of avant-garde art. However, the thirty or so works painted in Zborowski's apartment between 1917 and 1919 did not meet with the anticipated interest. In these works Modigliani looked to the example of earlier nudes, from Giorgione's Venus to Goya's Naked Maja, flattening the female form in a way first used by Ingres and ultimately adopted by Picasso. Most notable, however, is their erotic charge, which reflects the spirit of sexual liberty prevailing in Montparnasse in the second decade of the century and which shocked many of those who saw these paintings.