Renoir, Bathers

Renoir returned to the theme of bathing women throughout his career. Compared with his 1883 Nude in a Landscape, the two works treat the same subject in strikingly different styles. The 1883 painting leans on whites, blues, and greens, while this later work is dominated by the reds characteristic of his final years. The brushwork, too, has grown thicker and longer, with layers of paint built up to give the figure a lively sense of volume.

Setting the two side by side reveals how Renoir, far from resting on his reputation as a master, kept reinventing his style and experimenting well into his seventies. These late works later drew the attention of painters like Henri Matisse and Picasso, and the influential art dealer Paul Guillaume was an avid collector of this period, which is how the paintings came to the Orangerie.