Nude Women c. 1896

Camille Pissarro sketched “Nude Women” in graphite on paper sometime in the late 19th century. Here, Pissarro has taken the traditional subject of the nude and updated it with the techniques of Impressionism. Working in France at a time of great social change, Pissarro was interested in depicting modern life and was drawn to anarchist politics. Yet, he rarely directly represented these themes in his art. Instead, like many of his contemporaries, he explored the social dynamics of modern life through scenes of leisure, labor, and the everyday. But we might ask ourselves, how do we interpret this drawing today? As art historians, we seek a deeper understanding by exploring the artist's life, influences, and the cultural context in which they worked. Examining art criticism and exhibition records of the time helps us understand the role of art as something that is contingent on social and institutional context.