Bathing Nude 1927

Zinaida Serebriakova made this pastel drawing of a nude, well, sometime, and somewhere, and it captures a fleeting moment of intimacy and repose. Just imagine her process, standing before the model with those sticks of pigment, smudging and layering to build up the form. You can see how she works and builds up form with these marks. Look at how the soft blues and peaches blend to create the luminous skin tones, and how the strokes of darker blue form the contours of the body, capturing the weight and volume of the figure. You can really feel the artist's hand in the creation of this nude, like she's thinking about Renoir or Degas, but doing her own thing. It's like she's saying, "Hey, painting is a conversation, and I'm adding my voice to the mix!" And that's what it's all about, right?