La chevelure blonde

Painted in 1915, during the First World War, this female nude study focussing on the 'chevelure blonde' — the blonde head of hair — belongs to the sustained series of female nudes that runs throughout Vallotton's mature career. The hair of a nude model was a traditional area of painterly attention — from Venetian Renaissance hair-painting to the Pre-Raphaelite obsession with tresses — but Vallotton's treatment is characteristically stripped of sensuality. His nudes are observed rather than desired, described with the same impersonal precision as his still life objects. Blonde hair in particular presented a colour challenge: the warm golden tones of light hair against the cooler flesh of the neck and back required careful tonal management. Painted in 1915 while the war continued, this private studio exercise maintained the continuity of painterly practice against the disruption of historical crisis.

Oil on canvas with Vallotton's smooth, suppressed-brushwork technique applied to the challenge of describing hair. Blonde hair is rendered through layered warm ochres, yellow-browns, and golden highlights without visible individual strokes — the colour and tonal variation conveys the movement and texture of hair through mass rather than individual mark. The transition from hair to the neck and back below it uses careful tonal management to maintain the figure's coherence.