Seated Female Nude has a bodily sensuality that is often overlooked within Hammershøi’s art; a sensuality that also appears in several of the artist’s renditions of his wife, Ida.The canvas as skinWith his brushes, the artist has accurately and gently modelled the woman’s skin and voluptuous curves. The concept of the canvas as skin touched and manipulated springs to mind when one comes across a picture like this.The erotic atmosphere also owes much to Hammershøi’s ability to make the surface pulsate with life. He very rarely closes or saturates his fields of colour, leaving them very thin instead, often transparent, built up from tiny, short, vibrating brushstrokes.Hammerhøi