Seated Bather

In 1881-82 Renoir travelled to Italy to study the Ancient and Renaissance masters. As he later recalled, “Around 1883 there occurred what seemed to be a break in my work. I had wrung impressionism dry.” The theme of female nude bathers was absolutely canonical in the art world and it became one of the favourite themes of Renoir. Most of those masterpieces were inspired by the classics. But the painting we present today breaks with the tradition. Renoir painted the figure and her drapery differently from the landscape, so that she appears to float in the setting. He also left her right foot unresolved where it meets the fabric, manifesting that he is no longer interested naturalism. Later in his career Renoir started to paint differently - the brushwork became much thicker, the impasto was thick in some places, and in others, the artist left the texture of the canvas visible.