NAKAMURA, Fusetsu(1866-1943)
Nude Standing
c.1903
Oil on canvas
78.0×44.5cm

In a dessin class room of an art school, there is a dressing room in one corner. This is where the models undress. It is embarrassing even for girls whose profession it is to show their naked body to be seen undressing. Today, modelling seems to be one of the most popular occupation with women, but at the beginning of this century, it was still considered to be a mean occupation. Even in Paris, the city of arts, the models were mostly young boys and girls from poor Italian villages who had come to Paris to earn money.

Art schools which required many models secured them through their appointed employment agents. At the city squares where artists gathered, model market would be held once every week, offering jobs to the youths from the poor villages. Models like these surely must have also come to the Académie Julian where Fusets Nakamura was studying.

(Toru Arayashiki)