Félix Vallotton, who was Swiss, introduced the revival of the woodcut in the 1890s. His reduced forms in wood were greeted with much enthusiasm. He created illustrative works for various publishers, and became a contributing artist of notable magazines and illustrated books by prominent contemporary authors. In 1892, he joined the Paris artists’ group the Nabis, who were seeking to revive the printed arts. At the same time, Vallotton kept a certain distance to this group, who gave him the nickname “le Nabis étranger.” La Paresse shows an intimate scene of a female nude stretching lasciviously on a patterned bedspread. The diagonal of the body and that of the outstretched arm and the cat correspond to the pattern on the bedspread. The influence of the decorative surface qualities of Japanese prints on Vallotton becomes apparent in the flowing line, the tension-filled contrast of black and white, and the synthetic summarization of forms.
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