Jeune Femme endormie

Lovis Corinth's 'Jeune Femme endormie' (Sleeping Young Woman, 1902) is a figure subject of intimate observation — the sleeping female figure as a subject that combined the formal interest of the relaxed, unconscious body with the psychological interest of the observation of someone in the vulnerability of sleep. Corinth's engagement with sleeping figures allowed him to depict the body without the social performance that the waking figure always to some degree maintained, and his vigorous, sensuous handling gave the subject a quality of physical immediacy.

Corinth renders the sleeping woman with his characteristic loose, confident brushwork — the relaxed body and the specific quality of a sleeping figure's physical relaxation depicted with the directness of his mature handling. His warm palette gives the figure the luminous flesh quality that characterized all his figure work. The sleeping figure's specific posture and the quality of the light on the relaxed body creates the subject's formal content.