Composition, Five Bathers c. 1917 - 1918

Pierre-Auguste Renoir’s “Composition, Five Bathers” is alive with strokes of pink, peach, and ivory – it’s the fleshiness of being in a body. I imagine Renoir, brush in hand, circling around these figures, trying to capture the glow of skin in sunlight. Think about the act of painting itself. Renoir is piling on the paint, searching for the right tone, the right curve. See how the brushstrokes build into forms, how they dissolve into the background? There’s something unresolved, like a half-remembered dream. I wonder if Renoir ever felt satisfied with the way the painting resolved itself? And look at the way one of the figures reaches upwards. I'm struck by how that gesture communicates a sense of longing or reaching for something just beyond grasp. It reminds me of other artists who were grappling with similar themes of the human form and the natural world, like Cézanne and his bathers. Artists are always in conversation, you know, riffing on each other's ideas, pushing the boundaries of what painting can be. Each artist leaves room for interpretation and re-interpretation.