Monday, February 25, 2013

Celebrating Renoir's Large Bathers on his birthday

Here's my favorite Renoir painting, The Large Bathers 1884-1887 (Philadelphia Museum of Art). I actually like the combination of styles in this painting better than his works that have his trademark, brushy-style throughout.
It has great form and beauty. The smooth skin of the figures, contrasted with less-defined impressions of nature, makes sense to me. Shown below it is one of the sketches that he did in preparation for the painting. You can see how he changed the position of the girl with the braid in the final work.
Happy Birthday, Renoir!

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