Suzanne Valadon's The Blue Room

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The female nude has been used to showcase the female beauty throughout art history, however in the early twentieth century, female artists such as Suzanne Valadon give the female nude a new strength and individuality that most nudes lacked. The Blue Room is one of Valadon’s most famous works and the most accurate portrayal of the realities of the average life of the middle class woman in Paris. The painting can be characterized as a clothed nude, a term that may seem like an oxymoron, yet is the most accurate description of Valadon’s influential painting. The term nude to artists meant more than just naked, being naked was embarrassing, but being nude held a certain amount of dignity. Valadon’s choice to paint clothing on the woman in The Blue Room changed the definition of her female nude painting to be in line with even today’s modern definition of feminism. It revamped the term to give these nude painted women individuality and a purpose beyond their sexuality. …show more content…

The wall and curtains behind the woman and the bedspread that she is sitting on are extremely detailed. The bedspread and the curtains are an overwhelming blue with a light, but dizzying pattern of white flowers. The wall behind her is painted with chaotic brush strokes and varying colors, it appears as if it were a painted scene, yet it is impossible for the viewer to clearly make out what is painted. The pajamas that the woman is wearing are rumpled and appear as if she had slept in them, yet her curvy figure is clearly exposed. There is an open sexuality about her, but the woman is not inviting. Her gaze is lazily glancing to the side of the painting and not towards the