Seated Nude Woman c. 1906

This is Renoir’s "Seated Nude Woman," an etching at the Art Institute of Chicago. The magic of etching is in its lines, the way they create a shadow or a form with just a few strokes. Renoir here uses that process to capture something ephemeral, a moment, or a feeling. The surface of the paper, that creamy off-white, is as much a part of the image as the lines themselves, the figure almost emerging from the ground. Look at the way the lines thicken and thin, how they build up in the shadows under her arm or along her back to give weight and volume to the form. The details in the background are so interesting to me; the way the foliage is suggested with just a few quick marks. Renoir, like Degas, loved printmaking for its own sake, not just as a way to reproduce paintings. And I think you can see that joy in process here, that sense of exploration and discovery. It reminds me a bit of some of Bonnard’s intimate interiors, the way he captures a fleeting moment of beauty in the everyday.