Badende mit blondem, offenem Haar 1903

Renoir made this painting of a bather with blonde hair in oil, and what strikes me is how he's interested in process. You can almost see him thinking about the marks he's making. Look at her skin—it's all about the surface! He uses these soft, blurred strokes to model her form, and everything seems to melt into everything else. What does this do? It dissolves the boundaries, so the painting becomes this living, breathing thing. Everything glows with this inner light and the colour palette is subtle, just peachy oranges and earthy browns. Take a look at the background—it's almost like he's not interested in creating a sense of space at all, but it's about the painting as a flat surface. Renoir and his contemporaries were definitely in dialogue with artists like Manet, who were equally interested in the materiality of painting, and that whole conversation is still ongoing today.