Nude Girl, Seated

Van Gogh attended drawing academies in Antwerp and Paris where life drawing from nude models was central to academic training, and this 1886 study of a seated nude girl at the Van Gogh Museum documents his engagement with that tradition. He was dissatisfied with academic life drawing conventions and sought a more direct, less idealized approach to the figure—this canvas shows the tension between academic method and his instinct for expressive rather than correct figure rendering. The subject also connects to the Impressionist tradition of the female nude, particularly Renoir's work, which he encountered in Paris.

The figure is rendered with a combination of structural line and brushed color that sits uneasily between academic modeling and Impressionist looseness, reflecting Van Gogh's transitional moment. The palette, while warmer than his Dutch nudes, has not yet achieved the chromatic boldness of his later figurative work.