Description
A bather kneels low with her back to us, head turned in profile, her long fair hair falling loose to her waist. Renoir gives her no setting to speak of: a broad band of grey and brown weather across the top, a patch of teal and blue at the left that reads as water, and warm sand yellow running under her.
The paint is dry and thin, dragged across the weave so the canvas shows through in every passage, including the figure herself. Her shoulder and forearm are one continuous cream stroke; her hair is three. A small dark red monogram sits in the upper right.
At 15.2 by 14 centimetres this is a pocket-sized study, and it keeps the speed of one. Enlarged, the shorthand becomes the subject: you watch a body arrive out of six or seven decisions.



