Tall nude

Tall Nude from 1906 is an early example of Bonnard's sustained engagement with the standing female figure in a domestic setting. He was at this stage still developing the mature chromatic vocabulary that would reach its most intense form in the 1920s and 1930s, but the essential concerns are already present: the figure integrated into the interior, the decorative surface emphasized, the space compressed. Painted three years after he finished his studies and established himself in Paris, this work shows Bonnard moving away from the lighter quality of his Nabi period toward a denser and more physically present handling.

The handling is somewhat looser and more sketch-like than Bonnard's later nudes, with the form implied through a network of warm strokes rather than defined. The background is less aggressively chromatic than in later works, leaving more tonal contrast available between figure and setting.