Woman with Narghile
1878
Fernand Cormon invites us into a hazy, exotic daydream with this 1878 portrait of a woman lounging heavily on a plush red divan. She’s kicked off her slippers onto the floor and seems ready to smoke the tall hookah beside her, embodying the Western fascination with Middle Eastern life known as Orientalism. While Cormon was a strict teacher of Academic art, the loose, almost messy brushstrokes on her baggy trousers hint at the modern energy he would later pass on to famous students like Vincent van Gogh and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec.
- Technique
- Oil paint