Nude Blue Cushion

Nude Blue Cushion Oil Painting

Modigliani’s Nude Blue Cushion celebrated. The paintings are influenced by Italian Renaissance representations of Venus and other idealized female figures. In this painting from 1917, the model’s stylized, outlined body spans the entire canvas. Viewed close-up and from above, her hands and feet disappear outside the frame.

Her creamy skin glows against the dark red bed or couch. Unlike depictions of Venus from the Renaissance to the nineteenth century, in which mythological or allegorical attributes provide a context for the figure’s nudity, Amedeo Modigliani provocatively presents his Reclining Nude without any such references, highlighting the figure’s eroticism.

This painting is displayed in the National Gallery of Art in Washington.