Nude Girl, Seated

Van Gogh arrived in Paris at the end of February 1886 and spent about three months taking lessons in the studio of Fernand Cormon, a well-established painter of big historical scenes who ran a teaching atelier. An atelier was above all a way to get access to a model, which a painter on his own could rarely afford. The model here was a girl, and by the museum's account an awkward one to work from. The academic part of this small canvas is under the surface. He laid in a greenish grey underlayer, worked over it in thin coats from dark to light, and set the darkest accents into the shadows last, exactly the method he had been taught. The same girl appears in several of his drawings from that year.