Three Bathers

This Impressionist painter began from decorating ceramics and furniture. He later turned to painting and became known for his paintings of nude women beaming with vitality. Having painted blissful scenes of people reposing in the open air overflowing with light, in the 1880s, he recurred to the classics and pursued more solid forms. In his later years, he moved to Cagnes and headed towards mellow colored expressions.

This is a work Renoir painted very late in his life. Women in the nude, which he continued to portray insatiately, were no other than an eternal theme and eulogy of life to Renoir. Despite suffering from rheumatism, his vigorous urge to paint never declined to the very end. He is said to have gone as far as tying the paintbrush to his hand so as to continue painting from time to time. Here, three nude women voluptuous and full of vitality are portrayed in flowing, soft touches of warm colors such as red, orange, and yellow. As if issuing from the bathers, the scenery melts into them so that the unassumingly placed touches of green and purple make the glowing nude figures stand out. The white on the right provides the overall image with a spruce resonance.