Description
Seen from behind, a young woman lifts one arm to gather her hair, her hand reaching up into the mass of loose, wavy locks that fall well past her shoulders. A white cloth is knotted around her hips, leaving her back and one side of her chest bare, the curve of her breast just visible beneath her raised arm. Her head is turned in profile toward that arm, so the viewer sees only a sliver of her face, a hint of cheek and jaw, while the real subject of the picture is her back and the sweep of her hair.
Her hair is tawny, streaked with strands of copper, gold and deep brown, the paint dragged in long, directional strokes that follow the fall of each lock. Her skin is smooth, ivory pink, modeled with a soft, almost creamy finish and very little visible brushwork, a marked contrast to the loose, sketchy blue-green ground behind her, which reads as an outdoor setting without describing anything specific.
Painted in 1886, this falls squarely in Renoir’s so-called dry period, when he pulled back from broken Impressionist color in favor of firmer contour and a smoother, more classically modeled figure, looking to older painting for a sense of solidity. The clean silhouette of the back and the controlled, taut line of the arm are typical of that shift.
On a wall it offers a quiet, sculptural nude, its cool blue-green backdrop and warm ivory figure balancing each other, well suited to a bedroom or reading corner where a softer, more classical mood is wanted rather than the loud color of Renoir’s garden scenes.
