Seated Nude

Théo van Rysselberghe painted this 'Seated Nude' in 1905, the year following his participation in the major Pointillist retrospective that had brought renewed attention to the movement he had helped establish in Belgium. The work, now in the Albertina in Vienna, shows Van Rysselberghe applying his signature divisionist technique to the traditional subject of the female nude. Van Rysselberghe had encountered Seurat and Signac through the Brussels avant-garde group Les XX in the 1880s and had become one of the most accomplished exponents of divisionism outside France. The cardboard support suggests a study or sketch quality, possibly preparatory for a larger work or made quickly to capture a specific configuration of light and form. By 1905 Van Rysselberghe was at the height of his technical mastery, able to modulate the nude's flesh tones through the systematic juxtaposition of coloured points that divisionism prescribed.

Divisionist technique demands the systematic application of small colour touches whose optical mixture in the viewer's eye produces the desired tonal and chromatic effect. On cardboard rather than canvas, the paint layer is thinner and the support's texture more visible. Van Rysselberghe modulates flesh tones through the careful orchestration of warm and cool touches.