Nude from the Back 1917

Pierre-Auguste Renoir made this painting, Nude from the Back, with oils, and you can tell he's really into the way light falls on the skin, making it almost glow. It's all about the process, building up those layers of color. Look at the way the light catches on her back; it's like he’s sculpting with paint. The colors are soft, pinks and creams, and they blend together so seamlessly. Renoir's not hiding anything. You can see every brushstroke, every decision he made, and yet it resolves into this voluptuous form. There's this sense of the body being part of the world around it, like the flesh is just another texture alongside the drapery and the flowers. Renoir reminds me a little of Bonnard, the way he uses color to create a kind of dreamlike atmosphere. But while Bonnard gets more abstract, Renoir keeps one foot in the real world. There's a sense of ambiguity in his work, a feeling that there's more to see than what's on the surface.