Jules Pascin, Eliane

by Atelier Liesjes

A woman is leaning back in a low chair, her legs crossed at the ankles, her bare feet resting on the floor. She is naked and looks at us with a calm, almost wistful expression. Her hair is long, dark brown and wavy, and falls over her left shoulder. Her arms hang down along the armrests, her hands open. Her shoulders are narrow, her stomach soft and rounded; she sits as though she has only just sat down and does not yet know whether she will stay. The space around her is barely defined: a few broad, vague strokes in grey-brown and sage green suggest a wall or a cloth, and behind her vertical bands take shape like the edge of a window. In the lower left-hand corner is a small monogram. Pascin painted this nude with heavily diluted oil paint or gouache, in thin, translucent layers. The skin is almost transparent, built up from pearlescent white, pink and bluish tones; only around the hips and thighs does the colour become warmer and deeper. The style is post-impressionist and intimate, akin to the delicate draughtsmanship of the School of Paris. There is no pose, no narrative, just a woman sitting and waiting, suspended in a cool, translucent space.
Jules Pascin (Vidin 1885 – Paris 1930) was born Julius Pincas in Vidin, Bulgaria, and arrived in Paris in 1905 via Vienna and Munich, where he became one of the most sought-after portraitists in Montparnasse. His nudes are never heroic or classical; he painted women as they sat, with their own weight and languor, and with a mixture of tenderness and detachment. This canvas bears his monogram in the bottom left-hand corner. A tranquil, sensitive nude for a peaceful bedroom or a classical interior