Bath c. 1915

John Sloan made this print called 'Bath' using sepia ink, and you can almost feel the warmth of the water just by looking at it. The light is concentrated on the woman's back and shoulders, the rest is loosely suggested with all these scratchy, nervous lines. I can imagine Sloan, hunched over the plate, digging into the surface to make these marks, building up the image bit by bit. He probably started with a few key lines, then added more and more detail, letting the image emerge organically. What do you think he was thinking about? Was he observing a real person, or working from memory? This image reminds me that painting is not just about depicting a scene, but also about exploring the possibilities of the medium itself. The texture, the color, the surface - all of these elements shape our experience of the work. It’s like the Fauves, or the German Expressionists - he’s thinking about printmaking, and thinking about all those who came before him. He wants to show us more than just a person; he wants to show us the act of seeing.