Artwork Replica White and Black, 1913 by Felix Vallotton (1865-1925, Switzerland) | WahooArt.com

Felix Vallotton (i) - Oil On Canvas (i) - 1913 - (Villa Flora (Switzerland)) (i) The Kunstmuseum Bern in Switzerland houses this gem by the Swiss-French painter Felix Vallotton. Vallotton created this as a reply to Edourard Manet’s ‘Olmypia’, dated fifty years prior to “White and Black”. Manet’s painting shows a fair-skinned lady sitting naked on a bed, looking at us piercingly, while her dark-skinned maid is tending to her with a bunch of flowers. Vallotton, in his re-imagination, portrays the two ladies with a distinct air of ambiguity. The fair-skinned lady is lying on her bed in pure abandon with her eyes closed. The dark-skinned lady is wearing a native attire, rather than a maid’s attire. She’s sitting at the bedstead with a cigarette and staring at the naked lady. Manet purposes ‘Olympia’ to depict a more conventional idea of what the dynamic between the two races and classes is like. Vallotton, instead of merely subscribing to the ideal image, challenges us by putting the black woman in a position of moral superiority. Her robust, deadpan posture is a powerful call-out of problematic circumstances. She doesn’t have the option to lie in her bed all day, naked. The relationship between the two women is also left to our interpretation. Vallotton’s style comes from the group he came to associate himself with, which was called “Nabis”.