Two Female Nudes, Vilhelm Lundstrøm

Two Female Nudes, Vilhelm Lundstrøm (1927)

In 1923 Lundstrøm moved to the town of Cagnes-sur-Mer in the south of France and began to paint in a rigorous classical vein that was to be his signature for the next two decades. Lundstrøm's style Overwhelming in its sheer size, Two Female Nudes is a powerful example of Lundstrøm's style in the 1920s. Two mid-length female nudes - which can be seen as the front and back of the same model - have been placed against each other so as to fill the entire picture plane. The composition of the painting The composition is simple and monumental. The forms have been reduced to a strict minimum, rendered in a very limited palette of yellow-brown colours on a blue background. The simplification of the forms and the colour palette gives the picture a universal feeling. The two nudes are a kind of ideal beings without specific features, not bound to a particular time and place. Picasso's depictions of women and Léger Lundstrøm's classical figures are part of a broader trend within European art of the 1920s. They can be compared to the depictions of women by Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) or Fernand Léger (1881-1955) from the same period. Purism Another background to Lundstrøm's art is 'purism', a movement that emerged in France after the First World War. The proponents of purism disassociated themselves from cubism, which they believed had become empty decoration, and recommended a purification of painting instead.