José Clemente Orozco

This sketchy composition shows two figures, neither much acknowledging the other. A fully naked woman with a slightly downcast expression places her hands behind her head in a studio pose used by artists from Ingres to Picasso (see, for example, Les demoiselles d'Avignon). The second figure, more sexually ambiguous, appears to be a classical god or goddess wearing a toga, raising one hand as if taking an oath. Both figures have mask-like faces but are distinguished visually: the nude figure is composed of bright pinks and whites manipulated to give a sense of fleshy solidity, while the statue, formed of a dark network of parallel lines, seems more schematic, even flat. The broad slashing brushstrokes capture few details and the background—moist white swirls to the right; dry gray scratches to the left—provides no explicit context. Based on formal evidence, the painting, acquired from the artist's family, surely dates to the mid-1940s; although signed, it seems a preliminary draft rather than a finished work. Its theme relates neither to Orozco's series on the Spanish Conquest ("Los Teules") nor to his condemnations of Mexico City nightlife. Instead, it is more closely connected to the caustic images of around 1945 that he exhibited at the Colegio Nacional under the title "The Truth." [La Verdad]. Several of these ink drawings include vaguely classical figures. In the 1940s, Orozco also did numerous sketches of the female nude, some more awkward than others. The present descriptive title was applied to the work in a 1948 exhibition. Although the meaning of Nude and Statue is impossible to pin down with any precision, the two figures evoke fundamental oppositions basic to the artistic endeavor: live models versus plaster casts; the living present versus the ancient past; the risk of sensual abandon versus the rigor of classical control.