Couple in a Landscape

Wavering between reality and fiction, Francis Newton Souza's Couple in a Landscape is a resplendent example from the artist's oeuvre bringing his celebrated depictions of landscapes together with his iconic portrayals of nudes and couples. Souza constructs his composition in a series of geometric forms in buoyant colors of greens, pinks, blues and yellows, contained by heavy white lines.

Maximizing his use of space, Souza circumvents a traditional one-point perspective, where an unstructured arrangement of forms come together in a highly Cubist manner. His heavy brushstrokes and fiery palette suggest a passionate and tumultuous relationship between nature and civilization--in the foreground of a deeply textured backdrop stands a couple, a full frontal nude female figure with heavy and buxom features aside a fully clothed man. Although their faces remain somewhat featureless, the power struggle is imminent; while she appears sexually aggressive and somewhat vividly grotesque, she retains a sense of helplessness and sensuality, the male remains the dominant figure staring coldly out towards the viewer.