Hate

Painted by Félix Vallotton in 1908, this work shows a naked man and woman standing with their eyes closed and their heads bowed, locked in mutual contempt. The man, on the left, holds his arms folded across his chest, as if refusing to yield. The woman, on the right, presses her clenched fist against her chest and grimaces, an expression usually read as helpless resentment at a revenge that cannot be taken. The setting is almost absent: a dark floor and a pale background that isolate the figures and strip them of any context.

The composition recalls traditional depictions of Adam and Eve, the first couple of Genesis, but Vallotton turns their meaning around. Instead of the harmony of Paradise there is discord, and the painting works as an allegory of the war between the sexes that the artist linked to the growing emancipation of women in those years. His reading seems anti-feminist, as a remark in his diary suggests, yet the nudity of both figures carries the intimacy of the couple into a public space, which makes the scene feel more general than a private quarrel.

Painter

Félix Vallotton

Date

1908

Medium

oil paint, canvas

Dimensions

206 × 146 cm

Museum

Museum of Art and History Geneva, Geneva

Genre

nude

Depicts

hatred, naked woman, man

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