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The Bathers of 1887 and Renoir's Anti-Impressionism
Author(s): Barbara Ehrlich White
Reviewed work(s):
Source: The Art Bulletin, Vol. 55, No. 1 (Mar., 1973), pp. 106-
126
Published by: College Art Association
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The Bathers of 1887 and Renoir's Anti-Impressionism*
Barbara Ehrlich White
I Renoir, Bathers, 1887. Philadelphia Museum of Art, Mr. and
Mrs. Carroll S. Tyson Collection (photo: Philadelphia Museum)
Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841-1919) is well-known as the
Parisian painter of such radiant images as the Moulin de la
Galette of 1876, the Luncheon of the Boating Party of 1881, and
the Reclining Bathers of 1918 (Fig. 32).1 However, there is a
puzzling four-year period within his artistic career from
about 1884 through 1887, which is sometimes called his
"anti-Impressionist," "harsh," or "sour" phase. The major
painting of this period2 is the Philadelphia Museum Bathers

or "Grandes Baigneuses" (Fig. i). Renoir first exhibited this
work in May, 1887, at the fashionable Exposition inter-
nationale de peinture et de sculpture at Galerie Georges Petit. In
the exhibition catalogue, it was designated "Baigneuses.
Essai de peinture d6corative."3
The large oil on canvas (46V" x 67-1") is signed "Renoir.
* A bibliography of frequently cited sources, given in short
titles in the
footnotes, will be found at the end of this article.
1 I would like to thank the National Endowment for the
Humanities for
granting me a Younger Humanist Fellowship that supported my
research
on a full-time basis during the academic year 1969-70. The
Samuel H.
Kress Foundation and Tufts University Faculty Research Fund
also
gave me financial assistance for my Renoir studies.
I would also like to express my thanks to the following people
who
were helpful to me in different ways: H6lkne Adh6mar, Maurice
B6rard, Pierre Courthion, Frangois Daulte, Mary M. Davis,
Charles
Durand-Ruel, Ruth Ehrlich, Julius Held, Irma B. Jaffe, Linda
Nochlin,
Theodore Reff, Irene Galt Roche, Denis Rouart, Meyer
Schapiro,
Theodor Siegl, Jack Spector, and Susan Wexler. Most of all, I
would like
to thank my husband, Leon S. White, for his encouragement.
2 Other works of 1884-87 include: Mmine. Renoir Nursing
Pierre (Fig. 19),

Bather Arranging Her Hair (Fig. 20), and the following
illustrations in
Drucker, Renoir: Umbrellas, pl. 76; Children's Afternoon at
Wargemont,
pl. 77; Garden Scene, pl. 8o; the Braid, pl. 81; pastel of
Washerwoman and
Child, pl. 82; Girl, Cow, and Lamb, pl. 83; Girls Playing
Battledore and
Shuttlecock, pl. 84; pastel of Young Girl with Rose, pl. 85;
Julie Manet with
Her Cat, pl. 86; and Little Blond Bather, pl. 87.
3 Paris, Galerie Georges Petit, Exposition internationale de
peinture et de
sculpture: 6?me annee, May 8-June 8, 1887.
RENOIR'S
I 887 "BATHERS" I07
87" at the lower left.4 The artist sold the painting to
Jacques-Emile Blanche in 1889 for one thousand gold
francs. In 1927 Mr. and Mrs. Carroll S. Tyson, Jr. of Phila-
delphia bought the work for fourteen thousand pounds.5 In
1963 the Tysons bequeathed it to the Philadelphia Museum
of Art.
I
It is not known when Renoir began preparatory work on
the Bathers. Renoir literature repeats that it commenced in

1884 and continued throughout the next three years until
the painting was finished in the spring of 1887. Although
the 1884 starting date cannot be proven, the nineteen pre-
paratory studies (see Appendix A) suggest that Renoir
struggled for a long time with posture, form, composition,
and technique. The studies attest to great experimentation,
since they differ from one another in medium (pencil, ink,
watercolor, black, red, and white chalk), in support (can-
vas, yellow paper, brown cardboard, white paper), in
dimensions (from small to large), and in the number of
bathers (from one to nine).
Though we have not found any definitive preparatory
study for any one of the nudes, the precision of technique of
the three foreground bathers in the painting suggests that
Renoir must have made preparatory drawings equivalent to
them in form. He probably used tracing paper to transfer
his final drawings to the canvas. In other works of the mid-
188o's he used a similar anti-Impressionist technique.6
The two drawings that most approximate the nudes in
the final painting are Figures 4 and 5, which originally
formed one large sheet. The fact that the women are slightly
larger than the nudes in the Bathers suggests that at one

point Renoir had expected to paint on a bigger canvas.
Between Figures 4 and 5 and the finished Bathers, Renoir
raised the arms of the central nude, as seen in Figure 12, to
bring that figure closer to the picture plane. A similar
change was made in the right foreground nude who, in the
painting, appears more parallel to the picture plane than in
either Figure 5 or 14. Thus all three foreground nudes are
brought close to the observer.
While no reliable data exist of Renoir's procedure, the
widespread belief that the artist used a fresco technique is
contradicted by a posteriori observation. Ambroise Vollard
asserts that during his "sour period" Renoir tried to dupli-
cate this method in order to achieve a dry effect and to
prevent his colors from darkening.7 Nonetheless, technical
examination of the surface and reverse of the Bathers reveals
that Renoir did not use a white plaster coat such as gesso.
Theodor Siegl, Conservator of the Philadelphia Museum,
thinks that Renoir put a white lead ground under the oils;
that the artist first painted the smooth porcelain flesh of the
nudes, and later added the Impressionist landscape. Mr.
Siegl believes that the landscape was reworked several

times - perhaps even a year after the foreground nudes. This
would explain the scattered, relatively thick traction cracks
in the background on the left side of the painting.8
II
The Bathers is aesthetically incongruous because it lacks
unity of style. The left and right sides of the painting differ
in form, composition, color, and execution. The left is pre-
dominantly linear, classical, and realistic, whereas the right
is Impressionist. The two bathers on the left are mature
women, slightly under life-size, who turn towards us; the
right side shows three smaller adolescent girls who turn
away from the viewer. The sculptural bodies of the two
bathers at the left are detailed, crisp, and hard: lines abound
between the intricate silhouettes as well as in the drapery,
and a blue line defines the leaves, branches, and trunks of
the central trees (see Fig. i i). In contrast, the body of the
splashing nude in the right foreground is less precise. Her
loose hair blurs her face, and her vertical, simple posture
ties her to the two girls behind her. These two small nudes
and the landscape on the right have an imprecise, soft and
Impressionist form.
The left side of the composition dominates the painting,
taking up about two-thirds of the canvas. It is also more
intricate in the complex relationship between the contours
of the two nudes. There is a clear separation between the
figures and landscape in this shallow space. The organiza-
tion on the right is casual, the space is deep and airy, and

the figures merge with their surroundings. Although bright
light pervades the entire image, the women on the left have
an orange skin-color (as if of naples-yellow) that is hotter
than the pale, pink flesh tones of the figures at the right. The
two left bathers are executed with a smooth, flat, glossy
technique lacking visible brushstrokes. The skin of the
three nudes on the right is executed Impressionistically with
small strokes visible on the bodies and throughout the land-
scape. In many ways, the left side of the painting appears
contrived and overworked, while the right side seems
spontaneous.
This lack of unity and consistency within the painting
detracts from the harmony of its theme of nudes bathing.
4Nonetheless, the first book on Renoir, J. Meier-Graefe,
Auguste Renoir,
Munich, 1911, and Paris, 1912, dates the Bathers as 1885, page
103.
Numerous critics up to the present time follow Meier-Graefe in
errone-
ously dating the Bathers as 1885.
5For equivalent evaluations of prices see F. Duret-Robert, "Un
milliard
pour un Renoir?" in Renoir, Collection Genies et Realites,
Paris, 1970,
231-66. In personal correspondence of Oct. 2, 1963, Jacques-
smile
Blanche's nephew, G. Mevil-Blanche, replied to the author's
inquiry:
.

mon Oncle avait achet' [the Bathers] en 1889 pour le prix de
I,ooo Frs or
...
" In an unpublished letter to Mr. Carrol [sic] Tyson
from Offranville, dated Aug. 23, 1927, J. E. Blanche wrote that
he was
"willing to sell the Baigneuses of Renoir for the sum you
mention
(?14.0ooo00,
fourteen thousand Pounds)."
6 See my unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, "Renoir's
Development," 6o-
62, pls. 33-38.
7 Vollard, Renoir, 140-41.
8 Mr. Siegl was kind enough to examine the painting for me in
the
winter and summer of 1971. The examination of the reverse of
other
canvases of 1884-87 likewise showed no use of gesso or plaster:
Portrait
of Mine. Renoir, ca. 1885, Philadelphia Museum of Art
examined by
Mr. Siegl; Julie Manet with Her Cat, 1887, Coll. D. Rouart,
Paris, exam-
ined by M. Denis Rouart; Washerwoman and Child, ca. 1886,
Woman with
a Fan, i886, and Garden Scene, ca. 1887, Barnes Foundation,
Merion, Pa.,
examined by Violette da Mazia; portrait of Lucie Berard, ca.
1884, Coll.
M. Berard, Paris, examined by M. Maurice Berard; Mine.

Renoir
Nursing Pierre, 1885, Coll. P. Gangnat, examined by M.
Philippe
Gangnat; Bather Arranging Her Hair, 1885, Clark Art Institute,
Williams-
town, Mass., examined by the author with Mr. G. L. McManus;
Still Life, 1885, Guggenheim Museum, New York, examined by
Orrin
Riley.
2 Renoir, Study of Nine Nude and Clothed Bathers, pastel.
Paris, private collection (photo: Bulloz) 3 Renoir, Study ofFive
Nudes and Central Tree, pencil. Hartford, Conn.,
Wadsworth
Atheneum (courtesy Wadsworth Atheneum)
4 Renoir, Study of Two
Left Nudes, red chalk on
yellow paper.
Cambridge, Mass.,
Fogg Art Museum
(photo: Fogg Art
Museum)
5 Renoir, Study of Three Right Nudes
with Part ofFoot ofReclining Left Nude,
red and black chalk heightened with
white. Present collection unknown

(from Rewald, Drawings, pl. 43)
0
H
tT
6 Renoir, Study of Reclining Nude and Splashing Nude, pencil.
Present collection unknown (photo:
Wildenstein)
7 Renoir, Study ofReclining Nude and Splashing Nude with
Vertical Line
Separating the Two Figures, red chalk heightened with white.
London,
O'Hana Gallery (photo: O'Hana Gallery)
8 Renoir, Sheet of Studies Related to Reclining Left Nude,
pencil. Present collection unknown
(photo: Wildenstein)
9 Renoir, Sheet of Studies Related to Drapery of Two Left
Nudes, pencil.
Present collection unknown (courtesy Durand-Ruel)
z
co 00
00•

Io Renoir, Sheet ofEleven Studiesfrom an Album Page, pencil
and pen heightened with
watercolor wash. Paris, Cabinet des Dessins (photo: Archives
Photographiques)
i
i Renoir, Study ofFlowering Tree over Central Nude, india ink
on canvas.
New Orleans and New York, Muriel Francis Collection
(courtesy Muriel
Francis)
I2 Renoir, Sheet with Studies of
Two Nudes including Central
Seated Bather with Raised Arms,
pencil. Budapest, Museum of
Fine Arts (photo: Budapest
Museum)
13 Renoir, Study of Right
Foreground Nude, pencil.
Cambridge, Mass., Fogg Art
Museum (photo: Fogg Art
Museum)
14 Renoir, Study ofSplashing
Nude, pencil, multicolored
chalk, wash on brown
cardboard. Chicago, Art
Institute (photo: Art Institute)
12 13 14

0
H
H
H
z
RENOIR'S 1887 "BATHERS" III
This so-called masterpiece of 1884-87 is, in this writer's
opinion, not a great work of art, but a labored, unsuccessful
exercise. It nevertheless deserves serious study because it is
the key painting of this puzzling four-year period in Renoir's
career.
III
The Bathers is Renoir's first group scene of nudes, though he
had been a figure painter for more than twenty years. Before
1887, Renoir occasionally depicted single nudes outdoors.
Among these earlier nudes are stylistic prototypes both for
the figures at the left and the right.
In certain respects, the two left-foreground bathers recall
the large painting of Diana of 1867 (Fig. 15),9 which was
submitted to the Salon in that year but rejected. Lise,
Renoir's model and mistress of that period, is posed as
Diana, goddess of the hunt, with her attributes - bow and

arrows, fur loincloth, and dead deer. Diana's realistic body
is a prototype for the glossy naturalism of the breasts,
fingers, toes, hair, and skin of the two left bathers. Like
Diana, these two nudes hold artificial poses designed to call
attention to their sensual anatomy. The prominent draperies
in the Bathers (white at the left and yellow in the center)
partially cover their nudity, in a way that recalls the animal
fur draped over the abdomen of Diana.
When we compare the Bathers to the smaller Impression-
ist painting Nude in the Sunlight (Fig. 16) of 1876, we see
other points of similarity. This work was shown at the
second Impressionist exhibit at Durand-Ruel's gallery in
1876, where it was condemned as "revolutionary" by hostile
critics.10 Here, the resemblance is with the Bathers' right side
- the landscape (water, trees, mountain, sky), the two
marginal midground figures (the girl fixing her hair and the
girl swimming), and the head and hair of the right fore-
ground nude. Like the earlier Impressionist painting, these
parts of the Bathers are Impressionist and have a soft and
open form, varied and colorful strokes, and light that is
shimmering and omnipresent.
Renoir's Blond Bather (Fig. 17) of 1881 shows a shift away
from Impressionism to a more conservative, classical, and
sculptural conception of the nude. Compared to the Nude in
the Sunlight, the Blond Bather is less natural, less spontaneous,

and less animated. The painting was executed during
Renoir's trip to Italy, after he had written of his admiration
for the grandeur and simplicity, wisdom and knowledge of
the frescoes by the ancient Pompeian artists (Fig. 18) and
by Raphael (Fig. 24).11
The Blond Bather is a formally posed nude - his young
mistress and later his wife, Aline Charigot.12 She was a
peasant girl from Essoyes with almond-shaped eyes and
reddish-blond hair (cf. Fig. 19). According to contemporary
reports, she was quite fat. Ten years later, Berthe Morisot
wrote: "Je n'arriverai jamais a vous peindre mon 6tonne-
ment devant cette personne si lourde que je ne sais pourquoi,
je revais toute semblable a la peinture de son mari."13
The Blond Bather is a prototype for the central nude in the
Bathers of 1887 in her red-blond hair, round face, full breasts,
and strongly palpable body. Both figures are monumental
women who appear heavy, bovine, and lethargic. The
Blond Bather has a stable composition that prefigures the
pyramidal arrangement of the two left figures in the Bathers.
A final comparison may be made with the Bather Arranging
Her Hair (Fig. 20) of 1885.14 Suzanne Valadon probably
posed for this painting as well as for the two dark-haired
nudes who face right in the 1887 Bathers. At first glance, we
notice the similarity in pose between the 1885 nude and the
wading nude in the middle distance at the right; the wader's
right arm is simply moved to a higher position. More signi-
ficantly, however, the Bather Arranging Her Hair is a prototype

for the half-reclining girl in the left foreground in the linear
treatment of form, the calculated posture, and the fresco-
like execution.
First in the nude of 1885 and later in the left foreground
bather of 1887, Renoir calls attention to the precise edge of
the form - which is actually a painted blue line that defines
the contours and creases of the body. Line also describes
minute details such as eyelashes, the right ear, and strands
of hair. Because of the defined contour, the left bather looks
isolated, like a cutout pasted to the picture surface. This
separateness is reinforced by differences in execution and
hue between the smooth, one-color nude and her Impres-
sionist, multicolored surroundings.
In the Bather Arranging Her Hair we have a precedent for the
posture of the left-hand bather, who seems frozen in an
uncomfortable, contrived position. The upper torso of her
body is twisted so that her form is expanded and splayed out
on the surface of the canvas; at the same time, her body
appears contracted by the tight constraining edge and the
stiffly posed fingers and toes.
The Bather Arranging Her Hair sets a primary example for
the execution of the left-hand figures in the Bathers. In both,
Renoir completed the figure before he painted the land-
scape. And in both, the smooth, flatly painted flesh and the
lusterless, chalky surface make the nudes look like part of a
fresco. The stylistic differences between the focused linear

figure and the blurry Impressionist landscape create a
contradictory effect which isolates the bather from nature.
Thus the Bathers develops aspects of Renoir's previous
paintings of single nudes. The picture combines a left side
that is realistic (like Diana), classical (like the Blond Bather),
9 Diana is 77"x 51", "A. Renoir. 1867" 1.r.
10 For evidence of the "revolutionary" accusations, see White,
"Renoir's
Development," 91-99. Nude in the Sunlight is 31" X 25",
"Renoir" l.r.
11 See hite, "Renoir's Trip to Italy," 344. The Blond Bather is
32" x
26", "' Monsieur H. Vever/Renoir.8i" u.r. (partially painted
out).
12 Beginning with a statement in 1921 in Riviere, Renoir, I98f.,
almost
every discussion of the artist's life states or implies that he
married Aline
Charigot in 1881. See Rewald, Impressionism, 456; J. Renoir,
Renoir,
237-39; 247; D. Rouart, Renoir, Geneva, 1954, 53. In 1963,
with the
help of the artist's son M. Claude Renoir and the Conservateur
of the
Musee Renoir des Collettes, M. Denis-Jean Clergue, I obtained
a copy
of Renoir's unpublished marriage certificate from the town hall
of the
9th Arrondissement in Paris. This document specifies that the
marriage
date was April 14, 1890. This correct wedding date has

subsequently (in
1964) appeared in the chronological table in Perruchot, Renoir,
364.
13 Letter to Mallarme, fall, 1891 (Rouart, Correspondance de
Morisot, 163).
Also see Jean Renoir's description of his mother in J. Renoir,
Renoir,
216-18.
14 Bather Arranging her Hair is 36" X 29", "Renoir.85" 1.1.
According to
Rewald, Impressionism, 546, Valadon posed for the dark-haired
nude.
112 THE ART BULLETIN
15 Renoir, Diana, 1867. Washington, D.C., National
Gallery of Art, Chester Dale Collection (photo: National
Gallery)
16 Renoir, Nude in the Sunlight, 1876. Paris, Jeu de Paume
(photo:
Archives Photographiques)
17 Renoir, Blond Bather, 188 I. Williamstown, Mass., Sterling
and Francine Clark Art Institute (photo: Clark Art Institute)
I8 Pompeian painting, Sappho, Ist century B.c. Naples,
National Museum, fresco (photo: Alinari)
RENOIR'S 1887 "BATHERS" 113

19 Renoir, Mine. Renoir Nursing Pierre, 1886. Private
collection
(photo: Acquavella Galleries, Inc., N.Y.)
and linear (like the Bather Arranging Her Hair) with a right
side that is Impressionist (like the Nude in the Sunlight). As
might be expected, the total image lacks unity and harmony.
IV
A work of art cannot be explained, yet an inquiry into the
numerous influences affecting an artist helps us to under-
stand some of the reasons why he painted in a certain
manner. In the case of Renoir's complex contradictory
Bathers, we can point to many possible influences: changes
in the artist's personal life; the search for artistic progress;
the effects of contemporaries, tradit ion, and popular taste.
Changes in Renoir's Personal Life
In the 186o's and 1870's, Renoir was a member of the group
of Impressionists (Monet, Pissarro, Sisley, Cezanne, and
others) who lived and worked near one another in Paris and
in the suburbs. They were bound together by similar
artistic goals and methods, and their solidarity was rein-
forced by the lack of understanding and outright hostility of
Salon juries, art critics, and rich patrons to their "revolu-
tionary painting." Rejected by all the powerful forces in the
2o Renoir, Bather Arranging Her Hair, 1885. Williamstown,
Mass.,
Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute (photo: Clark Art
Institute)
art world, the group was united in poverty and frustration.
Renoir had only one success at an official Salon: in 1879

his non-Impressionist Portrait of Mme. Charpentier and Her
Children received favorable reviews and general acclaim.
During the years 1879-81 his reputation seemed to be im-
proving, and he even had enough money to travel to Italy
and Algeria. However, there was a depression in France
beginning in 1882, and, in the mid-1880's, Renoir's dealer,
Paul Durand-Ruel, could give the artist little financial help.
The years 1883-87 were desperate for Renoir; he sold few
works, and these went for low prices.15
In addition to experiencing monetary problems, by the
mid-188o's Renoir felt lonely and isolated from the other
painters. The Impressionist group had split apart, and the
artists worked far from one another. For most of the time
C6zanne was in Aix, Sisley in Moret, Monet in Giverny,
and Pissarro in Eragny. While maintaining a Paris studio,
Renoir traveled a great deal, staying in rural spots where
living was cheaper - Essoyes, La Rochelle, La Roche-
Guyon, Wargemont.16 These peaceful country settings in-
spired the landscape and stream in the Bathers and in several
of the preparatory drawings (Figs. I o, I i).
15 White, "Renoir's Development," 88-io6, I112-16, 126-3 I.
16 Between 1884 and 1887, Renoir's letters indicate that he was
in the
following places: 1884: Jan. and Feb. - Paris; summer - La
Rochelle,
Hotel d'Angoulkme. 1885: March 21 - Paris; June 15 to July II -
La
Roche-Guyon;July - Wargemont; August - La Roche-Guyon;
September
and October - Essoyes; early November - Wargemont; Nov. 20-
30 - Paris
at home (18 rue Houdon) and at studio (37 rue de Laval). 1886:
January

and February in Paris; July 3 - La Roche-Guyon; June and July -
Paris, 37 rue de Laval; August through mid-October - Maison
Perrette,
La Chapelle-Saint-Briac, and Sept. I - Gennevilliers; December
30 -
Essoyes. 1887: January - Auvers; May 12 - Paris; August - 35
rue de la
Station, Le V'sinet; September - Auvers; October - Paris, moves
to 35
blvd. Rochechouart near Montmartre; Fall - Trouville, Honfleur,
Louveciennes.
Because he was a sociable artist who liked to work with
colleagues, Renoir missed the old community of painters. In
May, 1884, he drafted a program for "La Socidtd des Ir-
regularistes" that was partly motivated by a desire to
re-establish an artistic fellowship.17 To his disappointment,
the society was never formed.
A poignant episode reveals the artist's resistance to the
break-up of the old community. Renoir wanted to paint
with Monet, but Monet preferred to work alone. On Janu-
ary I13, 1884, Monet, about to depart on a painting trip,
wrote to Durand-Ruel: "Aussi je vous demande de ne pas
parler de ce voyage a personne, . . . Renoir me sachant sur le
point de partir, serait sans doute desireux d'y venir avec moi
et ce nous serait tout aussi funeste a l'un qu'5 l'autre. Vous
serez sans doute de mon avis ... ".18 Two weeks later Monet

informed Durand-Ruel: "J'ai ecrit 'a Renoir et je ne fais pas
mystere de mon sejour ici; je tenais seulement a y venir seul,
pour &tre plus libre avec mes impressions. C'est toujours
mauvais de travailler a deux."19 Despite this apparent
rejection, two years later Renoir was still eager to paint
with his friend. He invited Monet to come and stay with
him and his family at La Chapelle-Saint-Briac: ". . . me
voila dans un coin gentil.... je crois que ce n'est pas perdre
son temps de venir voir. J'ai une maison pour deux mois,
avec cinq ou six chambres pour nous deux, si ga te tente, et
si tu veux venir, ne te gene pas, rien de plus facile . . . Je
t'ai dit, je crois, je suis la pour deux mois, ne te gene pas si
tu veux voir, ga vaut la peine."20 Monet never accepted
this invitation.
During the month when the Bathers was exhibited, Renoir
wrote Durand-Ruel about how isolated he felt: "Je you-
drais, de mon c6to, vous dire quelque chose d'interessant,
mais je ne vois pas grand monde."21 He clearly regretted
the dispersal of the old group.
Renoir's relationship with Aline and the birth of their son
in 1885 may have affected the Bathers.22 Aline was Renoir's
model and mistress from the late 1870's. She posed for the
1881 Blond Bather (Fig. 17) and for the central nude who
faces us in the 1887 Bathers. In July 1884 she conceived
Renoir's child. The baby - who was given his father's name
- was born on March 21, 1885; his birth was registered two
days later by the couple, although they were not married
until April 14, 1890.23 At the time of Pierre's birth, Renoir
was forty-four years old and Aline was twenty-six. When his
son was small, Renoir painted Mme. Renoir Nursing Pierre
(Fig. 19). The artist made at least eighteen preparatory

studies of this theme and three painted versions between
1885 and 1886.24
The financial burdens of a wife and child compounded
Renoir's problems. A symptom of his anxiety about his
relationship with Aline is his secretiveness about his personal
life. Even though he saw Berthe Morisot and her husband
at their weekly Thursday evening dinners throughout the
late 1i88o's, Renoir never said a word about Aline or Pierre.
He remained reticent even after his marriage. In the sum-
mer of 1890, Morisot wrote to Mallarmd that "l'ami Renoir
a passe plusieurs semaines avec nous."25 During his stay he
did not mention his wife or son. A year later, in July, 1891,
Renoir visited them unexpectedly and brought along a
woman and a six-year-old child whom he did not introduce.
Morisot and her husband were speechless until they deduced
that Aline and Pierre were Renoir's wife and son.26
Further evidence suggesting Renoir's concealment of his
family appears in a letter of August, 1887, written by the
painter to Eugene Murer. At that time Paul Alexis was
writing an article about Murer's collection, and Renoir was
fearful that Alexis might include something about Renoir's
personal life. Prudently he wrote to Murer: "Si vous voyez
Trublot [pseudonym of Paul Alexis] dites-lui que c'est un
excellent
garcon,
mais il me ferait bien plaisir de ne pas dire

un mot sur moi; de mes toiles tant qu'il voudra, mais j'ai
horreur de penser que le public sache comment je mange
ma c6telette, et si je suis nd de parents pauvres, mais hon-
n&tes. Les peintres sont assommants avec leurs histoires
lamentables, et on s'en fout comme de l'an quarante."27
Renoir's strange evasiveness with Morisot and her hus-
band may have been prompted by the fact that they were
wealthy and knew many potential patrons. For the same
17 Renoir's platform was included in a letter to Durand-Ruel,
May,
1884 (Venturi, Archives, I, 127-29).
18 Monet's letter to Durand-Ruel, Giverny [Jan. I12, 1884]
(ibid., I, 267-
68).
19 Monet's letter to Durand-Ruel, Bordighera, Jan. 28, 1884
(ibid., I,
271).
20 Letter to Monet, La Chapelle-Saint-Briac [Aug., 1886] (G.
Geffroy,
Claude Monet, sa vie, son oeuvre, Paris, 1924, I, 23).
21 Letter to Durand-Ruel [Paris] May I12, 1887 (Venturi,
Archives, I, 138).
22 See Barbara Ehrlich White, "Renoir's Sensuous Women," in
Woman
as Sex Object, ed. Thomas B. Hess and Linda Nochlin, New
York, 1972,
I66-181.
23 The marriage contract of April 14, 1890, states that the
couple had
"declare reconnaitre pour leur fils en vue de la legitimation
devant
resulter de leur mariage, Pierre, nd eA Paris, le vingt et un mars

mil huit
cent quatre-vingt-cinq, inscrit le surlendemain en la dix-
huitibme Mairie
comme le fils de Pierre Auguste RENOIR, et de Aline Victorine
CHARIGOT." See note I12 above.
24 Mme. Renoir Nursing Pierre (Fig. i9)
Oil on canvas, 314" X 251"
"Renoir" l.r.
Coll. M. Jacotte, Limoges; Durand-Ruel, Paris; Adrien Hibrard,
Paris; Ambroise Vollard, Paris; Prince de Wagram, Paris;
Knoedler.
New York; Chester Beatty, London; Arthur Tooth, London; Sam
Salz, New York; Knoedler, New York; Acquavella Galleries,
New
York; priv. coll.
Two other versions are:
Mme. Renoir Nursing Pierre (on log bench)
Oil on canvas, 32" X 251"
"Renoir.85" l.r.
Coll. M. Claude Renoir, Cagnes; Renou et Colle, Paris; M.
Philippe
Gangnat, Paris.
Ill. F. Fosca, Renoir, N.J., 1962, 185.
Mme. Renoir Nursing Pierre (with cat)
Oil on canvas 29" X 2If"
"Renoir.86" 1.1.
Coll. Durand-Ruel, Paris; Henry Sayles, Boston; Scott and
Fowles,
N.Y.; Mr. and Mrs. Hunt Henderson, New Orleans; Mr. Charles
Henderson, New Orleans.
Ill. N. Y. Duveen, Renoir Centennial Exhibition, 1941, pl. 57.

25 Letter to Mallarme, summer, 1890 (Musee Municipal,
Limoges,
Homage h Berthe Morisot et a P-A Renoir, catalogue by D.
Rouart, 1952, 25).
26 Rouart, Correspondance de Morisot, 16 I .
27 Letter to Murer [Aug., 1887] (P. Gachet, Lettres
impressionnistes au
Dr. Gachet et h Murer, Paris, 1957, 95). Also see P. Gachet,
Deux Amis des
Impressionnistes: Le Docteur Gachet et Murer, Paris, 1956,
170o.
21 Ce'zanne, Bathers at Rest, 1875-76. Merion, Pa., Barnes
Foundation (photo: Barnes Foundation)
reason, he did not want any personal facts included in
Alexis's article. Knowledge that he had a peasant mistress
and an illegitimate child would hardly enhance his reputa-
tion in haut bourgeois society. Rather, it would confirm the
general conviction that he was a bohemian revolutionary.
It seems likely that Renoir's financial burdens and his
isolation from his friends account in part for the overworked
rigidity of the Bathers. His personal difficulties might explain
the nudes' lack of joy, vitality, and abandon. Anxiety may
have contributed to the reduction of the freest part of his art
- his Impressionism - and inhibited his natural gift for
beautiful color harmonies. As his life became more difficult,
perhaps he tried to counteract his personal uncertainty

through his work. The classical, linear, and realist direction
would bring stability and calm to his art - and to himself.
Renoir's search for graphic control and for compositional
order, as well as his intensified desire to assure himself that
he was in the traditional ranks, may have been, in part, a
result of his personal problems. Finally, Renoir's multiple
difficulties undoubtedly made him unwilling to take risks.
Feeling that he must please the haute bourgeoisie, he modeled
his art on Ingres's. At the same time he tried to remain
faithful to his own artistic ideals.
The Search for Progress and "Irregularity"
Renoir, like many of the other Impressionists, did not want
to continue painting in the same style. He constantly sought
progress and change in his art. In the platform paper that he
wrote in May, 1884, for his proposed Society of Irregularists,
he expresses many ideas that seem to explain some of the
peculiarities of the Bathers:
LA SOCIET DES IRREGULARISTES
Dans toutes les controverses que soulkvent quotidienne-
ment les questions d'art, le point capital sur lequel nous
allons appeler l'attention est g6neralement laisse en oubli.
Nous voulons parler de l'irregularite.
La nature a horreur du vide, disent les physiciens; ils
pourraient completer leur axiome en ajoutant qu'elle a
non moins horreur de la regularitd. ....
il semble meme
que les beautes de tout ordre tirent leur charme de cette

diversitd.
En examinant a ce point de vue les productions plas-
tiques ou architecturales les plus renommees, on s'aper-
?oit ais6ment que les grands artistes qui les ont credes,
soucieux de proc6der comme cette nature dont ils ne
cessaient d'&tre les respectueux 6l&ves, se sont bien gardes
de transgresser sa loi fondamentale d'irregularitd .... On
peut ainsi, sans crainte d'erreur, affirmer que toute pro-
duction v6ritablement artistique a 6te concue et exdcutie
d'apres le principe d'irregularit6, en un mot, pour nous
servir d'un ndologisme qui exprime plus completement
notre pens6e, qu'elle est toujours l'ceuvre d'un irregu-
lariste.28
The irregularity within the Bathers - between the left
(realist, classical, and linear styles) and the right (Impres-
sionist style) - may be a manifestation of his artistic credo.
We have seen that in preparatory studies for his painting,
Renoir experimented with a variety of techniques and with
different postures and arrangements. Furthermore, in his
letters of the mid-188o's he spoke continually of his search
for artistic progress. In the summer of 1884 he wrote to
Durand-Ruel: "Voila le premier voyage qui m'aura servi a
quelque chose, et justement parce que le temps tellement
mauvais m'a fait plus r6flechir et voir que faire du vrai
travail. Neanmoins j'ai rempli des toiles."29 In the fall of
1885 he wrote to his dealer: "J'ai beaucoup perdu de temps
a trouver une maniere dont je sois satisfait. Je pense avoir
fini de trouver, et tout marchera bien."30
Another letter from Renoir to Durand-Ruel, dated

August, 1886, states: "Je suis tres content et je suis sir
maintenant de pouvoir produire sfirement et mieux que par
le pass6."3'1 In spite of positive feelings, he must have later
changed his mind. In April, 1887, Pissarro wrote to his son:
"11 parait aussi que Renoir a d6truit tout ce qu'il a fait
l'ann6e derni;re pendant l'6td.'"32
From such evidence, it seems that 1884-87 was a period
of experimentation which culminated in the large Bathers.
During these years Renoir may have been guided by a
theoretical idea of irregularity which contributed to the
stylistic diversity of the painting.
The Influence of Contemporaries
Only the right third of the Bathers is painted in an Impres-
sionist manner. This departure from a totally Impressionist
28 Venturi, Archives, I, 127-28. Also see "From Auguste
Renoir's Note-
book" in J. Renoir, Renoir, 240-45.
29 Letter to Durand-Ruel [La Rochelle, summer, 1884]
(Venturi,
Archives, I, 129-30).
30 Letter to Durand-Ruel, Essoyes [Sept.-Oct., 1885] (ibid., I,
132).
31 Letter to Durand-Ruel, Saint-Briac [Aug., 1886] (ibid., I,
136).
32 Letter to Lucien, Paris, April 14, 1887 (Rewald, Pissarro:
Lettres, 141).

22 Girardon, Bathing Nymphs, 1668-70, iron bas-relief.
Versailles, Gardens (photo: Archives
Photographiques)
23 Boucher, Diana at Her Bath, 1742. Paris, Louvre (photo:
24 Raphael, Galatea, 1513, fresco. Rome, Villa Farnesina
(photo: Anderson)
H
25 Ingres, Preparatory Drawing for the Grande Odalisque, ca.
1814, pencil. Paris, Louvre (photo:
26 Ingres, Grande Odalisque, I814. Paris, Louvre (photo:
Archives Photographiques) 27 Ingres, La Source, 1856. Paris,
Louvre (photo:
Archives
Photographiques)
0
co
co
t
-4

I18 THE ART BULLETIN
image (as seen in Fig. 16) was part of a general anti-
naturalist movement in French literature, music, and paint-
ing at this time.33 Renoir's divergence from naturalism
towards a new classicism had begun in 188I1 with the Blond
Bather (Fig. 17). Around 1883-84 the general acceptance of
certain new aesthetic and philosophical doctrines led many
artists to question the visual basis of Impressionism. Wyzewa
later wrote that enlightened people around 1883 were tired
of the visible world with its harsh relief, crude light, and
blinding colors.34 In literature, likewise, some writers de-
parted from Zola's scientific naturalism. This departure is
exemplified most clearly by Huysmans's A Rebours of 1884,
in which he wrote of his dislike for the modern world and
its scientific progress. Renoir concurred. In his platform for
the Society of Irregularists, he expressed hostility toward
industrialization: "A une 6poque oi notre art frangais, si
plein jusqu'au commencement du ce siecle encore, de
charme penetrant et d'exquise fantaisie, va p6rir sous la
rdgularitd, la secheresse, la manie de fausse perfection qui
fait qu'en ce moment l'dpure de l'ing6nieur tend a devenir
l'iddal, nous pensons qu'il est utile de rdagir promptement
contre les doctrines mortelles qui menacent de l'aneantir, et
que le devoir de tous les ddlicats, de tous les hommes de
goit, est de se grouper sans retard, quelle que soit d'ailleurs
leur rdpugnance pour la lutte et les protestations."35

Several writers in the literary and musical world are
likely to have encouraged Renoir's classicism. Among them,
Mallarme was the most notable. In the mid-188o's
Mallarmd and Renoir became acquainted at Morisot's
Thursday evening dinners. Morisot's correspondence reveals
their friendship. She wrote to Mallarme on December Io,
1886: "Voulez-vous nous faire l'amiti6, vous et Mlle.
Genevieve, de venir diner avec nous jeudi prochain. Monet
sera des n6tres, Renoir aussi et tous deux [seront] enchantes de
passer quelques instants avec vous."36 This time Mallarm6
had to decline because of another commitment. "C'est une
malchance," he responded, "moi qui ne sors jamais, parce
que j'aurais tant aim6 aussi voir et Monet et Renoir."37 As
Mallarme was both a forerunner and an exponent of the
idealist aesthetic, he may well have applauded Renoir's
classicism. In 1887 Mallarmd asked Renoir to illustrate one
of his poems, and Renoir's linear drawing of a nude was
accepted by the poet.38
Renoir's evolution also bears some spiritual relationship
to the "culte wagndrienne," the musical equivalent of the
anti-natural, pro-idealist literary current. The Wagnerian
doctrine of the mid- i88o's expounded an aesthetic that was
considered an antidote to scientific naturalism. "C'est un
retour vers l'iddalisme, une rdvolte contre le naturalisme et
le positivisme."39 The two editors of the Revue Wagnerienne,
Teodore de Wyzewa and Edouard Dujardin, admired
Renoir's linear classicism. In 1890 Wyzewa enthusiastically

praised the pure beauty of the form of the Bathers: "Les
Baigneuses, qu'il exposa a l'exposition de la rue de Seze en
1887, resteront le temoignage de ces anndes de recherches et
d'hisitations. Je ne puis oublier l'6motion surnaturelle que
me causa cette peinture a la fois douce et forte, ce melange
ddlicieux de vision et de reve. L'effort de tant d'annies
aboutit
'
un triomphe. M. Renoir saisit enfin, pour ne plus
la perdre, cette pure et savante beaut6 de la forme dont,
parmi nous, il est seul, desormais, a savoir le secret."'0
Dujardin honored Renoir by including his name in a list of
"Wagnerian painters" in 1885.41
Renoir already had many ties with the "culte wagneri-
enne," and had been a Wagner enthusiast from the mid-
i86o's.42 Some of his friends, like M. Lascoux and Mme.
Mend6s, knew Wagner personally. Consequently he re-
ceived a letter of introduction that enabled him to paint the
composer's portrait in 1882 during his trip to Italy.43 Several
years later Renoir was still enthusiastic about Wagner's
music. In October, 1887, six months in advance of the per-
formance, Renoir wrote: "Ii faut aussi que je m'occupe
d'avoir des places pour Lohengrin, au mois d'avril. Je m'y
prends maintenant pour etre s ur."44

Anti-naturalist currents in literature and music in the
early I88o's were paralleled by anti-Impressionist changes
in the art of many of the Impressionists. At the same time,
letters from Monet and Pissarro express dissatisfaction with
their own work. Both artists write about their search for a
change in direction.45
More than any other contemporary, however, C6zanne
reinforced Renoir's evolution towards classicism. In the
1870's, Cezanne had already painted posed bathers with
outlined contours. C6zanne's Bathers at Rest (Fig. 21) of
1875--76 was exhibited at the third Impressionist show in
1877, where it was praised by Renoir and by his close friend
Georges Riviere, who wrote:
M. C6zanne est, dans ses Qeuvres, un Grec de la belle
6poque; ses toiles ont le calme, la s6rinit6 h~roique des
33This complex reaction against naturalism in literature and
against
Impressionism in art has been investigated by several authors.
See M.
Schapiro, "The Nature of Abstract Art," Marxist Quarterly,
1937, 81-85;
B. Dorival, Les Etapes
de la Peinture Franfaise Contemporaine, Paris, I1943, I,
24-30; S. L6vgren, Genesis of Modernism: Seurat, Gauguin,
Van Gogh, and

French Symbolists in the i88o's, Stockholm, I 959, xii.
34 Rewald, Post-Impressionism, 163.
35 Venturi, Archives, I, 128-29.
36 Letter to Mallarme, Paris, Dec. Io, I1886 (Rouart,
Correspondance de
Morisot, 129).
37 Letter to Morisot, Paris, Dec. 1886 (ibid., 130).
38 See ibid., 132-33. Ill. Rewald, Drawings, pl. 30. This
illustration was
eventually published in 1891 in Mallarmd's Pages.
39 Isabelle Wyzewska, La Revue Wagndrienne: Essai sur
l'interpretation
esthitique de Wagner en France, Paris, 1934, 2-3.
40 Teodor de Wyzewa's article on Renoir appeared on Dec. 6,
1890, in
the second issue of Paul Durand-Ruel's periodical, L'Art dans
les deux
mondes. This article was reprinted with additions in Teodor de
Wyzewa,
Peintres dejadis et d'aujourd'hui, Paris, 1903, 373. For evidence
of contact
between Wyzewa and Renoir see Venturi, Archives, II, 230 and
I, 142,
I144.
41 Edward Lockspeiser, "The Renoir Portrait of Wagner,"
Music and
Letters, xvin, 1937, i6.
42 Rewald, Impressionism, I16.
43 White, "Renoir's Trip to Italy," 337, 342,348-50.
44 Letter to Berard, Paris, Oct. i8, 1887 (Bdrard, "Lettres a Paul
Berard,"
6). Also see Rewald, Post-Impressionism, 14.
45 Monet's letters to Durand-Ruel, Sept. 13, 1881; Sept. 18, 19,
26,
1882; and Dec. I, 1883 (Venturi, Archives, I, 223f., 236, 237f.,

264).
Pissarro letter to Lucien, Nov. 20, 1883 (Rewald, Pissarro:
Lettres, 68).
Pissarro letter to Durand-Ruel, June, 1885 (Venturi, Archives,
ii, 9).
28 Bouguereau, Two Bathers, 1884. Chicago, Art Institute
(photo:
Art Institute)
peintures et des terres cuites antiques, et les ignorants qui
rient devant les "Baigneurs," par exemple, me font l'effet
de barbares critiquant le Parth6non ....
Cependant la peinture de M. C6zanne a le charme
inexprimable de l'antiquite biblique et grecque, les
mouvements des personnages sont simples et grands
comme dans les sculptures antiques, les paysages ont une
majestd qui s'impose, et ses natures mortes si belles, si
exactes dans les rapports des tons, ont quelque chose de
solennel dans leur v6ritd.46
In the late 1870's and 188o's, Renoir admired C6zanne's
work and owned several of his paintings and watercolors.47
Furthermore, the artists were close friends and painted
together for three weeks in early 1882 in L'Estaque. Three
years later (when Pierre was only one month old), C4zanne,

his wife, and their thirteen-year-old son were guests of the
Renoirs at La Roche-Guyon. From June 15 through July
I I, 1885, the two men again worked together. C4zanne may
well have encouraged Renoir to paint figures with more
solidity and structure, yet to retain Impressionist light.
While Renoir was inspired by C4zanne's example, he
may have been verbally encouraged by Morisot and Monet,
who approved of Renoir's anti-Impressionism. After seeing
many of his preparatory drawings for the Bathers and for
Alme. Renoir Nursing Pierre, Morisot expressed admiration
for his linear rendering of formi. In her diary entry of
January I I, 1886, she wrote:
Visite chez Renoir. Sur un chevalet, dessin au crayon
rouge et a la craie d'apres une jeune mare allaitant son
enfant; charmant de grice et de finesse. Comme je
I'admirais, il m'en a montre une serie d'apres le meme
modele et, )a peu pres, dans le meme mouvement. C'est
un dessinateur de premiere force; toutes ces 6tudes pre-
paratoires pour un tableau seraient curieuses 'a montrer
au public qui s'imagine gendralement que les Impres-
sionnistes travaillent avec la plus grande desinvolture. Je
ne crois pas qu'on puisse aller plus loin dans le rendu de
la forme, deux dessins de femmes nues entrant dans la
mer me charment au meme point que ceux d'Ingres. I1
me dit que le nu lui parait &tre une des formes indispen-
sables de l'art.48
She also commissioned Renoir to paint a portrait of her
daughter, Julie Manet with a Cat, in 1887, and she preserved
all of the preparatory studies.49 A final indication of Mori-
sot's approval is seen in her own use of the linear silhouette

in her paintings of the mid-i88o's.50
Like Morisot, Monet admired Renoir's linear nudes.
After seeing the Bathers when it was first exhibited, he wrote
to Durand-Ruel, who was then in America: "Renoir a fait
un superbe tableau de ses baigneuses, pas compris de tous,
mais de beaucoup."51 Monet's statement "de ses baig-
neuses" suggests that he was well aware that Renoir had
been working on these linear nudes for some time and that
he felt that Renoir's Bathers was an artistic success.
The Influence of Tradition
Renoir's kind of anti-Impressionism was conservative and
traditional. Perhaps the difficulties in his private life made
him less innovative and more drawn to the great masters, or
perhaps his trip to Italy in 1881-82 had increased his self-
doubt. Whatever the reasons, he clearly needed the help of
46 Riviere article in L'Impressionniste, Journal d'Art, April 14,
1877 (Ven-
turi, Archives, II, 315f.).
47 Ce'zanne's works in Renoir's collection are illustrated in L.
Venturi,
Cizanne - son art et son wuvre, Paris, 1936, I: Thatched
Cottages at Auvers,
1872-73, pl. 135; Landscape, 1879-82, pl. 308; Struggle of
Love, 1875-80,
pl. 380; Turning Road at La Roche-Guyon, 1885, pl. 441
(painted during
Cezanne's visit with Renoir; now at the Smith College
Museum).
Besides these paintings, Renoir also owned Cezanne's
watercolors: Nude
Bathers, 1882-94, pl. 902; Carafe and Bowl, 1879-82, ill. N.Y.,
Knoedler,

Cezanne Watercolors, exhibit by Columbia University Dept. of
Art History
and Archaeology, April, I963, pl. v. In addition, Renoir knew
the
Cezannes in Chocquet's collection; see J. Rewald, "Chocquet
and
Cezanne," Gazette des Beaux-Arts, LXXIV, 33-96.
48 Berthe Morisot's diary, entry Jan. II, 1886 (Rouart,
Correspondance de
Morisot, 128).
49 See note 6 above.
50 See Morisot's La Toilette, 1884, ill. in A. Fourreau, Berthe
Morisot,
London, 1925, pl. 19. Also see ibid., 55-56.
51 Monet's letter to Durand-Ruel, Giverny, May 13, 1887
(Venturi,
Archives, I, 325-26).
earlier artists in his first group-scene of nudes. Renoir had
always been interested in the great art of the museums, but,
of all his paintings, the Bathers shows the most obvious and
numerous references to well-known masterpieces. Renoir
seems to declare in the painting that he is not at all the
revolutionary whom the critics derided, but an artist who
closely follows past masters.
The starting point for the Bathers was Girardon's Bathing
Nymphs of 1668-70 (Fig. 22), an iron bas-relief situated in

the All6e des Marmousets at Versailles. Girardon's decora-
tive frieze of eleven nudes was the first inspiration for
Renoir's bathers, as his Study of Nine Nude and Clothed
Bathers records (Fig. 2). Girardon's influence remains in the
final painting in the theme (bathers, some with draperies,
some totally nude, seated on the banks or wading in a
stream); in the postures (the splashing girl, the kicking girl,
the girl wrapping drapery around her); and in the composi-
tion (a horizontal decorative frieze with pairs and triads of
figures).
A second well-known source is Boucher's Diana at Her Bath
of 1742 (Fig. 23), at the Louvre. The influence of Boucher's
painting can be seen in Renoir's placing of the two bathers
at the left, who are framed by the shallow landscape.
Renoir's nudes, like Boucher's, are paired by a complemen-
tary relationship in pose, by a crossing and overlapping of
their precisely defined legs, and by the variety of axes of
their limbs.
In a more general manner, Renoir consciously looked
back to the eighteenth century. He wrote of his admiration
for the spirit of Rococo painting. In his platform for the
Society of Irregularists, he stated that he sought to restore
the quality "de charme p6n6trant et d'exquise fantaisie
"
. .52
of the eighteenth century. The spirit of frivolous
Rococo eroticism is present in Renoir's Bathers.

In October, 1885, Renoir wrote to Durand-Ruel that he
had finally found the "facture" that he had been searching
for: "J'ai repris, pour ne plus la quitter, l'ancienne peinture
douce et 16g6re.... Ce n'est rien de nouveau, mais c'est une
suite aux tableaux du XVIIIe siecle. Je ne parle pas des
bons. C'est pour vous expliquer a peu pres ma facture
nouvelle et derniere (Fragonard en moins bien).... Je ne
me compare pas, croyez-le bien, i un maitre du XVIIIe
sidcle. Mais il faut bien vous expliquer dans quel sens je
travaille. Ces gens qui ont l'air de ne pas faire nature en
savaient plus que nous. . .
.".,
"C'est tris doux et color6,
mais clair."54
Renoir first used such tonalities in 1885 (as in the Bather
Arranging Her Hair, Fig. 20, and in Mme. Renoir Nursing
Pierre, Fig. I9), and they appear in the Bathers of 1887.
Renoir saw the Bathers as a continuation of the soft natural
color and clear pervasive light of the Rococo.
Less obvious than the influence of Girardon's relief or
Boucher's painting is that of Raphael's Galatea (Fig. 24),
1513. Since Renoir exhibited the Bathers as "Essai de peint-
ure d6corative," we may assume that he meant it to be seen
in relation to the great murals of the past. Raphael's fresco,
in the Villa Farnesina in Rome, was one of the wall paint-
ings that Renoir admired in Italy.55 On November 21, 1881,
he wrote from Naples to Durand-Ruel: "J'ai 6t6 voir les
Raphael & Rome. C'est bien beau et j'aurais d i voir ?a plus
t6t. C'est plein de savoir et de sagesse. I1 ne cherchait pas
comme moi les choses impossibles. Mais c'est beau. J'aime

mieux Ingres dans les peintures a l'huile. Mais les fresques,
c'est admirable de simplicit6 et de grandeur."56 In a similar
vein, a few months later, he explained to Mme. Charpen-
tier: "Raphael qui ne travaillait pas dehors avait cependant
6tudid le soleil car ses fresques en sont pleines."57 Renoir's
Bathers contains those qualities which he admired in
Raphael: classical knowledge and wisdom, simplicity and
grandeur, and pervasive natural sunlight.
Renoir wanted the Bathers to look like a fresco. Like
Raphael's Galatea, the Bathers (in the execution of the three
foreground nudes) evinces a smooth, dry technique and
light, pale colors. The Bathers also follows Raphael's classical
arrangement: the composition is based on a triangle, and
the interior organization on pairs and triads of figures.
Finally, it may be that subconsciously Renoir was trying to
emulate Raphael. In a letter to his friend Paul Berard in
October, 1887 (five months after the Bathers was exhibited),
Renoir wrote - in mock-humorous tone - that he was again
having difficulty working, but he added, "Je n'en crois pas
moins que je vais tomber Raphal et que les populations de
l'ann6e 1887 vont s'dpater."58
The most important sources for the Bathers were drawings
and paintings by Ingres. According to the classical proce-
dure for planning a painting, Ingres made many prepara-
tory studies in which he worked out the exact outlines of
the forms and the spaces between silhouettes. This is the

opposite of the Impressionist method, which uses no pre-
paratory drawings. In planning the Bathers, Renoir followed
the traditional procedure and made more than nineteen
studies in order to arrive at an exact linear design for the
foreground nudes. If we compare Ingres's Preparatory Draw-
ingfor the Grande Odalisque (Fig. 25), ca. 1814, with Renoir's
Sheet of Studies Related to the Reclining Left Nude (Fig. 8) or
with his Sheet of Studies Related to the Drapery of the Two
Left
Nudes (Fig. 9), it is plain that Renoir has followed Ingres's
drawing technique of precise pencil line, meticulous shad-
ing, and reinforced contour.
The two left-hand nudes of Renoir's Bathers are modeled
after the Grande Odalisque of 1814 (Fig. 26) and the Source of
I856 (Fig. 27), in their combination of linear, classical, and
realistic features. Above all, Renoir emulated Ingres in the
precise outline that separates the bathers from their environ-
ment and in the abstract shapes between forms (under arms,
necks, and legs). The postures are calculated to draw
52 Renoir's "Soci6t6 des Irr6gularistes," May, 1884 (Venturi,
Archives, I,
128).
53 Letter to Durand-Ruel, Essoyes [Sept.-Oct., 1885] (Venturi,
Archives,
I, 131-32).
54 Letter to Durand-Ruel, Essoyes [Oct., 1885] (ibid., 133-34).
55 White, "Renoir's Trip to Italy," 341, 344-
56 Letter to Durand-Ruel, Naples, Nov. 21, 1881 (Venturi,

Archives, i,
I 16-17).
57 Letter to Mine. Georges Charpentier, L'Estaque [late Jan. or
early
Feb., 1882] (Florisoone, "Lettres," 36f.).
58 Letter to B6rard, Paris, Oct. 18, 1887 (B6rard, "Lettres a
Paul
B6rard," 6).
RENOIR'SI 1887 "BATHERS" 121
attention to the edge of the form: the dark-haired reclining
nude seems derived from the Grande Odalisque in the twist of
her upper torso, while the light-haired central bather
resembles the Source in the extension of her arms and chest.
Ingres distorts the anatomy of his nudes to create a graceful
arabesque; in like manner, Renoir contorts the back and
feet of the left bather and attenuates the right leg of the
central bather to achieve the contour he seeks. Following
Ingres, Renoir gives abstract decorativeness precedence over
representational accuracy. By treating the bodies graphi-
cally, he creates rhythmical silhouettes effective as surface
design.
Ingres's classical influence can be seen in the structural
clarity that Renoir has given to the monumental closed
forms in the foreground. His ordering of forms reads as both
a bas-relief and a pyramid; triangles relate the two girls at
the left as well as the three foreground girls in a relationship
of glances, gestures, and leg movements.

In the two left-hand nudes, Renoir, like Ingres, uses a
meticulous execution without visible brush strokes to
achieve a smooth glossy surface and precise finished ap-
pearance. Also reminiscent of Ingres is the realistic render-
ing of the bathers' toes, fingers, skin, and drapery. Ingres
extended his realism to the erotic quality that he gave to
his nudes. Likewise, Renoir painted his seated bathers as
sex objects who self-consciously adopt alluring but affected
poses, conveying a frozen sensuality.
In spite of Renoir's dependence on Ingres, significant
differences exist between the Grande Odalisque and the Source
and the two principal bathers in Renoir's work. While
Ingres's nudes have academic-realistic color and light,
Renoir's painting has fanciful hues and pervasive lumin-
osity. Ingres's silhouette is exclusively fluid and rounded
while Renoir's contours are both rounded and angular.
Ingres draws attention to the edge by value contrast and by
shadowing, Renoir by a colored outline, unmodeled surface,
and juxtapositions of different techniques and hues. Finally,
Ingres more successfully integrates his figures with shallow
space, while in the left side of the Bathers, the space defined
by the two nudes is discontinuous with that of the total
landscape.
The question remains why Renoir followed Ingres so
closely. Artistic motives inclined him to the linear and
classical aspects of Ingres, but opportunist motives attracted

him to his realism. Renoir's admiration for Ingres's paint-
ings is already apparent in his letters of 1881-82 from Italy:
in one he praised Raphael's frescoes, but asserted that he
preferred Ingres's oil paintings to those by Raphael;59 in
another, written at the time he was painting Wagner's
portrait, he stated that he wished he were Ingres.60
First, Renoir felt that Ingres was the greatest draftsman
of all time. Renoir's self-conscious emulation of Ingres in
the Bathers came at a time when he made more drawings
than at any other period. (This writer's unpublished cata-
logue raisonn6 finds that Renoir made more than one
hundred and fifty drawings from 1884 through 1887.)
Second, Ingres was a leading painter of nudes - both
alone and in groups. Renoir's most common theme during
the mid- 1i880's was the nude; he told Morisot in January,
1886, that he thought nudes were one of the essential sub-
jects of art.61 The Bathers is Renoir's first attempt at a
group-scene of nudes.
In a more general fashion, Renoir admired Ingres as the
model of an artist who sustained the classical ideal without
sacrificing his own originality. During his work on the
Bathers, Renoir was very eager to assure himself that he too
was in the ranks of tradition, although he pursued an
original course.

The Influence of Popular Taste
Renoir could justify his realism in the two principal nudes
of the Bathers as derived from Ingres; however, this also
seems to have been a concession to popular taste that was
motivated by the artist's financial need and his desire to
gain the appreciation of the wealthy haute bourgeoisie. Ingres
had achieved fortune as well as academic and official honor
during his lifetime. After his death in 1867 and for the next
few decades, the realist features of his style became the
foundation for the academic tradition of the official Salons
and the
l
cole des Beaux Arts.62 Indeed, the academic ideal
in the 1870's and 188o's was principally derived from
Ingres's realism, elegance of style, and precision of tech-
nique. The Salon jury, the influential art critics, and the
rich public of the 1870's and 1880's praised such realistic
disciples of Ingres as Adolph-William Bouguereau (1825-
1905).
Bouguereau was a popular Salon painter of nudes and
portraits and a member of the Academy who had received
numerous official awards. Most important, he was a com-
mercial success who pleased the public with his "fine tech-
nique." In many of his paintings, Bouguereau followed
Ingres closely. For instance, his Nude of 187063 is merely a

photographic paraphrase of Ingres's Source (Fig. 27).
Bouguereau's style, as seen in the Two Bathers (Fig. 28) of
1884, imitates Ingres's realism of detail, smooth glossy finish,
and sensual poses.
Renoir's vulnerability to haut bourgeois taste was neces-
sarily a function of his financial situation. In 1886 and 1887,
because of his extreme poverty and his new family respon-
sibilities, Renoir came closest to Ingres-Bouguereau realism
in the hope of improving his situation. His troubles were
severe. The crash of the Union Gdndrale des Banques in
February, 1882 led to a general depression in the French
economy.64 During the years 1882-1885, as the depression
worsened, Durand-Ruel paid Renoir less and less from
sales of his paintings.65 Indeed, by 1884 Durand-Ruel was
59 Letter to Durand-Ruel, Naples, Nov. 21, 1881 (Venturi,
Archives, I,
S116-17).
60 Letter to unnamed friend [Palermo] Jan. 14, 1882 (Drucker,
Renoir,
I34).
61 See note 48 above.
62 R. Rosenblum, Ingres, New York, I967, 9-
63 This painting, owned by Salvador Dali, was on loan in New
York in
1965 at the Gallery of Modern Art (now the New York Cultural
Center).
64J. P. T. Bury, France, 1814-I94o, London, 1949, 170.
65 Perruchot, Renoir, 202, n.2: "En I882, 17,761,55 francs; en

1883,
10,370,50; en 1884, 7,850; en 1885, 6,900oo."
I22 THE ART BULLETIN
on the verge of bankruptcy.66 In the fall of 1885, Renoir,
now in acute financial distress, wrote to Durand-Ruel from
Essoyes: "Je d6pense peu ici. Je vous serai oblig6 de
m'envoyer un peu d'argent a la fin du mois pour payer ma
note et prendre le chemin de fer. Le plus grave sera 'a Paris.
Je compte travailler ferme et il me faudra de l'argent."67
Twice Pissarro wrote to his son of Renoir's disastrous
poverty. In January, 1886: "Je n'y comprends plus rien,
Renoir et Sisley sont sans rien .... ,"68
In June, 1887: "..
il n'a plus d'amateurs. Comment font donc Sisley et
Renoir? C'est incomprdhensible. ...."
69A few months later,
in October, 1887, Renoir took steps to reduce his expenses.
He wrote to Paul B6rard that he had moved to save rent:
"Je me contenterai donc de vous dire que j'ai demenag6 et
que j'en suis ravi. 1,2oo00 au lieu de 3,00ooo."70
Throughout the depression years of the mid-188o's,
Renoir received few portrait commissions and sold few
works. When his paintings did sell, they went for pitifully
low prices. In February, 1882, Renoir's Mlles. Cahen d'Anvers,

a large double portrait that had been exhibited at the Salon
of 188I1, brought him only 1,500oo francs.71 At his New York
exhibit in the spring of 1886, Durand-Ruel sold the large
painting Geraniums and Cats of 1881 for 2,500 francs.72
However, in spite of the depression, Bouguereau continued
to command high prices for his work. In 1886, Bouguereau's
Two Bathers (Fig. 28) sold for 100,450 francs; and in 1887,
his Return from the Harvest went for 4o,500oo francs.73 In the
following year Renoir's Girl with a Falcon of 188o brought
a mere 1,450 francs.74
One of the ways in which Renoir tried to improve his
financial situation was to exhibit at fashionable shows.
Durand-Ruel's sole great rival, the wealthy Georges Petit,
had been attracting rich patrons to his elegant gallery for
his annual Exposition Internationale. This "sanctuary of
academicism"75 attracted popular artists, including Boldini,
Besnard, J. E. Blanche, and Raffailli. Monet also exhibited
at Petit's in 1886. With Mme. Charpentier's help, Renoir
was invited to submit works to the fifth Exposition Inter-
nationale, held in the summer of 1886. Renoir wrote to
her expressing appreciation for her assistance: "Chere
Madame, Je viens d'apprendre par Monet que je fais parti
de l'exposition de chez Petit pour laquelle vous avez fait
tant de d6marches en ma faveur, c'est donc vous dire que
l'on va red6crocher votre portrait puisque c'est la seule
chose qui m'a fait accepter. J'irai donc vous voir mercredi
vous remercier d'abord et vous dire des masses de choses.
Votre bien devoud, Renoir."76
Besides the portrait of Mme. Charpentier and Her Children,

which had been a big success at the Salon of 1879,77
Renoir exhibited other works that were far from Impres-
sionist in style. Of Renoir's five paintings, three were
flattering, realistic portraits of well-known rich ladies: Mine.
Charpentier and Her Children of 1878; Mme. Paul Berard of
1879;
and Mme. Leon Clapisson of 1883. Renoir also exhibited two
more recent works, Mlle. Lucie Berard of 1884 and Mme.
Renoir Nursing Pierre (Fig. 19) of i886,78 which emphasize
precise line, tangible form, and smooth finish. Furthermore,
Mme. Renoir Nursing Pierre has references to traditional and
academic prototypes (e.g., Raphael's Madonna of the Chair
and Bouguereau's Charity, a success at the Salon of 1878).79
Renoir's new style received mixed reactions. On July 27,
1886, Pissarro wrote to Lucien: "Durand [Durand-Ruel] a
ftd chez Petit, il a vu les Renoir, il n'aime pas du tout sa
nouvelle maniere, mais pas du tout."s80 However, others did
admire Renoir's recent work. When Berthe Morisot wrote
to compliment Monet on his success at Petit's, she added:
"Renoir aussi a de fort belles choses, dit-on. Je regrette bien
de ne pouvoir voir tout cela et me rendre compte par moi-
meme du degrd de comprdhension du public. Le dompterez-
vous cette fois d6finitivement
?...,,81
From his experience at the Exposition Internationale of
1886, Renoir was familiar with the elegant milieu and taste
of the buying amateurs. We learn at first hand about the
oppressive atmosphere chez Petit in two letters from
Pissarro to his son. Both refer to the Exposition Internation-
ale of 1887, but the environment was the same in 1886. Two
months before the opening of the 1887 exhibit Pissarro

wrote: "J'ai rencontre Duret hier, il m'a dit: 'Ah! ah! vous
allez exposer [chez Petit]. Mais vous savez, il faut consi-
d6rer cela comme une affaire commerciale. C'est un milieu
idiot! idiot! Des concessions, faites des concessions! . . .
Mais c'est idiot, il n'y a plus moyen de rien faire, voilk Zola
meme qui s'abaisse, pour gagner quelques sous, a collaborer
avec un Busnach.'"82 The day of the opening of the show,
Pissarro wrote to Lucien, "J'ai eu bien des ennuis avec cette
satande exposition qui sent le bourgeois a plein nez.... Mais
66 Sven Lovgren, Genesis of Modernism, 90. See also Venturi,
Archives, 1,
6o, 73.
67 Letter to Durand-Ruel, Essoyes [Sept.-Oct., 1885] (ibid., 1,
132).
68 Letter to Lucien, Paris [Jan. 21, 1886] (Rewald, Pissarro:
Lettres, 90).
69 Letter to Lucien, tragny [June 1, 1887] (ibid., 154-55).
70 Letter to Berard, Paris, Oct. 18, 1887 (Berard, "Lettres
' Paul
Berard," 6).
71 Letter to Deudon, L'Estaque, Feb. 19, 1882 (M. Schneider,
"Renoir:
lettres sur l'Italie," L'dge d'or - itudes, I, 1945, 99).
72 New York, National Academy of Design, Works in Oil and
Pastel by the
Impressionists ofParis, intro. T. Duret, New York, 1886, n. 284
(annotated
catalogue).
73 H. Mireur, Dictionnaire des Ventes d'Art.. ., Paris, 1911, I,
415.
74 Ibid., vi, 237.
75 F. Duret-Robert, "Un milliard pour un Renoir ?," 244.

76 Letter to Mme. Charpentier [April, 1886] (Florisoone,
"Lettres," 38).
77 For favorable reviews in 1879, see White, "Renoir's Trip to
Italy,"
339, n. 57. Also see J. Letheve, Impressionnistes et Symbolistes
devant la
presse, Paris, 1959, 106-07.
peinture et de
sculpture: 5'me annee, opened June 15, 1886, Paris, catalogue n.
124-28.
For illustrations of paintings exhibited see: Mme. Charpentier
and Her
Children (in Drucker, Renoir, pl. 5I); Mme. Paul Berard and
Mlle. Lucie
Berard (in M. Berard, Renoir a Wargemont, Paris, 1938 [n. pl.];
Mine. Leon
Clapisson (in A. Andre, Renoir, Paris, 1928, pl.
15). 79 Illustration of Bouguereau Charity in M. Vachon,
Bouguereau, Paris,
1900, I 17.
80 Letter to Lucien, Paris [July 27, 1886] (Rewald, Pissarro:
Lettres, lo8).
81 Morisot letter to Monet, Jersey, June, 1886 (Rouart,
Correspondance de
Morisot, 129). See also Venturi, Archives, 1, 75.
82 Letter to Lucien, Paris, March 17, 1887 (Rewald, Pissarro:
Lettres, 139).
29 Renoir, Bathers in the Forest, ca. 1897. Merion, Pa., Barnes
Foundation (photo:
Barnes Foundation)

30 Renoir, Study of Three Foreground Nudes, 1901 -03,
multicolor chalk on
brown paper. Paris, Cabinet des Dessins (photo: Archives
Photographiques)
31 Renoir, Bathers, 1901-03. Nice, Musee Massena (photo:
Musde Massena) 32 Renoir, Reclining Bathers, ca. 1918. Paris,
Louvre (photo: Archives
Photographiques)
z 0
co
tu n'as pas id6e combien on est esclave en ce milieu, et
cependant sans-gene pour les puissants de gener la libert6
des autres."83
Soon after the Exposition of 1886, Renoir was invited to
exhibit again at the sixth Exposition Internationale held
chez Petit the following summer.84 In preparing the final
version of the Bathers for the Exposition Internationale of
1887, Renoir seems to have been opportunistically moti-
vated to make his painting more realistic, more academic,
and less Impressionist. Some of his concessions to popular
taste are reminiscent of Bouguereau's Two Bathers (Fig. 28)
of 1884. Consciously or subconsciously, Renoir follows
Bouguereau in the form of his two left nudes (note the

realism of breasts, hair, feet, and fingers; the sensual precise
bodies); in the figures' postures (complicated poses that are
self-conscious and artificial); in the composition (the intri-
cate arrangement of feet and arms); and in the execution
(the meticulous glossy surface and smooth flesh color).
Renoir's ambition to attract the haute bourgeoisie through
this well-attended fashionable exhibition is made clear by a
letter he wrote to Durand-Ruel (then in America) four days
after the opening of the show: "L'exposition de Petit est
ouverte et elle n'a pas mal de succes, dit-on. Car c'est
difficile de savoir soi-meme ce qui se passe. Je crois avoir
fait un pas dans l'estime publique, petit pas. Mais c'est
toujours ga. . . . Bref, le public a l'air de venir. Je me
trompe peut-6tre, mais on le dit de tous c6tes. Pourquoi
cette fois-ci et pas les autres ? C'est a n'y rien comprendre."85
Hence, the Bathers was in part an attempt to satisfy
current bourgeois taste. At the same time Renoir was
searching for progress and "irregularity" and he was in-
spired by contemporary and traditional art. These con-
flicting aims resulted in a hybrid work containing elements
of realist, impressionist, classical, and linear styles.
As already mentioned, some of Renoir's friends, including
Monet, Morisot, and Wyzewa, liked the Bathers. Renoir (in
the letter cited above) felt he had taken a step forward in
public favor. Monet similarly reported to Durand-Ruel:
"le public acheteur nous fait d6cid6ment meilleur accueil

.... la maison Boussod . . . aura . . . des Renoir."86
In spite of the fact that both Monet and Renoir felt (four
or five days after the opening of the show) that the buying
public was impressed, Renoir's actual success was short-
lived and minimal. There was much negative response to
the Bathers. On May 14, 1887 (six days after the show
began), Pissarro wrote to his son: "Quant A Renoir, meme
6cart.-Je comprends bien tout l'effort tentd; c'est trbs bien
de ne vouloir rester en place, mais il a voulu ne s'occuper
que de la ligne, les figures se d6tachent les unes sur les
autres sans tenir compte des accords, aussi c'est incomprd-
hensible. Renoir, n'ayant pas la facult6 du dessin et n'ayant
pas les jolis tons instinctivement sentis d'autrefois, se trouve
incoherent."87 In discussions with Renoir, Pissarro freely
expressed his disapproval.88
Others disliked the linear style of the Bathers. On May 16,
1887, Pissarro reported to his son that "Astruc... a fulmin6
contre la reculade des Renoir . . ." and that Desclozeau
criticized "les ceuvres simplistes de M. Renoir."89 In another
letter, Pissarro told of similar unfavorable responses from
Hoched6, Petit, and Bracquemond.90 The influential writer
Huysmans was also negative91 and found Renoir "vieillot"
(old-fashioned). Most important, Renoir's close friends
Georges Rivibre and Th6odore Duret disliked the Bathers.92
These strictures from people he respected must have raised
doubts in Renoir's mind about his "irregular" style.
Over a year later, in October, 1888, Renoir was eager to

talk about his recent work with Pissarro. It would seem that
he was groping to discover where he had gone wrong. As
Pissarro reported to Lucien: "J'ai longtemps cause avec
Renoir. . . . Je lui ai dit que pour nous la recherche de
l'unite6 6tait le but vers lequel tout artiste intelligent devait
tendre, que meme avec des grands d6fauts, c'6tait plus
intelligent, plus artiste que de pietiner dans le roman-
tisme."93 In the same letter Pissarro wrote that former
patrons and Durand-Ruel also disliked Renoir's recent
style: "Il m'a avoue que tout le monde, Durand, amateurs
anciens, lui criaient apris, deplorant ses tentatives pour
sortir de sa p6riode romantique . . . I1 ne trouve plus de
portraits a faire depuis! . . . Parbleu!"94
Unfortunately, the Bathers did not achieve the financial
success Renoir had hoped for. The painting was not sold
until two years later. In 1889, Jacques-Emile Blanche, a
twenty-eight-year-old friend and former pupil, bought the
work for the low sum of one thousand francs. However,
83 Letter to Lucien, Paris, May 8, 1887 (ibid., 144).
peinture et de
sculpture: 6Qme annee, May 8-June 8, 1887, Paris, catalogue
nos. 137-42:
"137. Baigneuses. Essai de peinture decorative. 138. La jeune
fille ~ la
rose. Pastel [ill. Drucker, Renoir, pl. 851-]. 139. Portrait de
Mme X .. Pastel. 140. Portrait d'enfant. 141. Blanchisseuses.
142. (Sans indication
de titre ou de technique)."
Others who exhibited at the Exposition Internationale in 1887
include

Morisot, Sisley, Monet, Pissarro, Whistler, Raffa 6lli, Puvis de
Chavannes,
Cazin, Rodin.
85 Letter to Durand-Ruel [Paris] May 12, 1887 (Venturi,
Archives, I,
138).
86 Monet letter to Durand-Ruel, Giverny, May 13, 1887 (ibid.,
I, 325) ;
cf. Renoir's letter cited in note 85. The art dealers mentioned
are
Boussod and Valadon.
Also, Van Gogh probably was recalling the Bathers when he
wrote to
Theo from Arles, May 4, 1888: "I think very often of Renoir
and that
pure clean line of his" (The Complete Letters of Vincent Van
Gogh, Green-
wich, Conn., 1939, II, 556).
87 Letter to Lucien, Paris [May I14, 1887] (Rewald, Pissarro:
Lettres, 146).
88 Letter to Lucien, Paris [May 15, 1887] (ibid., 147-49).
89 Letter to Lucien, Paris [May 16, 1887] (ibid., 150, 151, n. i).
90 Hochede's criticism is recorded by Pissarro in his letter to
Lucien,
Paris [May 14, 1887] (ibid., 147). Georges Petit decided to help
Monet
and Sisley but not Renoir, which suggests that he disliked
Renoir's
recent style; see Pissarro's letter to Lucien, Paris [May 15,
1887] (ibid.,
148). Bracquemond's attitude is reported by Pissarro in the same
letter
(ibid.).
91 Huysmans's aversion is cited in Rewald, Impressionism, 548.

Also see
Lucien Pissarro letter to his father, Paris, June 2, 1887 (Rewald,
Pissarro:
Lettres, 155)-
92 G. Riviere, Renoir et ses amis, Paris, 1921, 199-201, and T.
Duret,
Renoir, Paris, 1924, 95-96.
93 Letter to Lucien, Paris, Oct. I, 1888 (Rewald, Pissarro:
Lettres, I178).
Pissarro distinguishes between the Batheis' romantic
Impressionism and
Pissarro's current scientific Impressionism (neo-Impressionism).
94 Ibid.
RENOIR'S 1887 "BATHERS" I25
during the late I880'S and early I89o's, earlier works by
Renoir began to sell, and gradually his financial situation
improved. By 1892, when he was fifty-one years old, Renoir
could finally depend on good reviews, frequent sales, and
high prices.
Renoir himself seems to have become displeased with the
Bathers' style. In July, 1888, he refused to exhibit it at the
forthcoming 1889 Paris World's Fair, writing: ".. . je trouve
tout ce que j'ai fait mauvais, et que ce me serait on ne peut
plus p'nible de le voir expos6."95 From the direction in
which his art was developing, it seems that Renoir felt that
the realism and linear concentration of the Bathers had been
too constraining. He must have realized that this style did
not express his temperament and did not permit the free

flow of his lyricism.
However, the theme of the 1887 Bathers continued to
interest Renoir,96 and he later made variations of the paint-
ing (see Appendix B). Renoir's Bathers in the Forest (Fig. 29)
of 1897 has seven figures and is close both to the Study of
Nine Nude and Clothed Bathers (Fig. 2) and to Girardon's
Bathing Nymphs (Fig. 22). In 1901-03 Renoir made a draw-
ing of the three foreground bathers (Fig. 30) and a painting
(Fig. 31) in which he included a figure in the middle
distance. In these two variations, made fourteen years after
the original Bathers, Renoir changed the posture of the
central girl to achieve a more harmonious arrangement.
After the Bathers of 1887, Renoir's paintings became more
unified, and never again was there irregularity within an
image. Beginning in 1888, Renoir rejected opportunist
realism and fresco-like effects, while at the same time he
harmonized the Impressionist, linear, and classical elements
found in the Bathers. The marks of labor and calculation
disappeared, and the artist returned to his former natural-
ism and spontaneity. Renoir continued to paint groups of
nudes playing outdoors in the country (as in Reclining
Bathers, ca. 1918; Fig. 32), but the sensual content of such
scenes became more convincing. The girls continue to
splash and play, but their postures are no longer frozen.
The crisp Ingrist outlines give way to a soft flowing arab-
esque. The classical sculptural form remains but is softened

by overall luminous Impressionist strokes.
Tufts University
Appendix A
Catalogue of Renoir's Studies for the "Bathers" Arranged
from Groups to Single Figures
Key to the order of entries: title; support, height and width in
inches;
signature and date (position of signature: l.r. is lower right; 1.1.
is
lower left; u.r. is upper right; u.l. is upper left); collections, ar-
ranged in chronological order, the present collection given last;
our figure number or where illustrated (if no illustration accom-
panies this article).
I. Study ofNine Nude and Clothed Bathers (Fig. 2)
Pastel, 81" ' Ixo"
"Renoir" 1.1.
Coll. Prince Wagram, Paris; private coll., Paris.
2. Study of Standing Right Splashing Nude (study of one figure
from
drawing above)
Pencil, 101" x II4l"
Whereabouts unknown.
Ill. Rewald, Drawings, pl. 34-
3. Study ofSix Nude and Clothed Bathers
Colored drawing (unknown medium), unknown size.
Whereabouts unknown.
Ill. Vollard, Tableaux, I, 22, pl. 88.
4. Study ofFive Nudes and Central Tree (Fig. 3)

Pencil, 98" x 13"
"Renoir" 1.1.
Coll. Zoubaloff, Paris; Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford,
Conn.
5. Study ofFive Nudes and Landscape
Pastel, unknown size.
"R" l.r.
Coll. formerly A. Vollard, Paris.
Ill. Rewald, Drawings, pl. 36.
6. Large Study ofFour Nude and Clothed Women
Oil on canvas, 241" X
37-" "Renoir" l.r.
Coll. Vollard, Paris; Etienne Bignou, Paris; Galerie P6trides,
Paris; M. Paul Petrides, Paris.
Ill. Frangois Daulte, Auguste Renoir, Catalogue Raisonni de
l'PEuvre Peint, I, Figures 186o-9go, Lausanne, 197i1, pl. 477.
7. Study of Two Left Nudes (Fig. 4; originally connected to the
following drawing; figures are larger in size than the figures
in the painting)
Red chalk on poorly preserved yellowish paper, 491" X 551"
"Renoir" l.r.
Coll. Mme. Abel DesJardin, Paris; bequest of Maurice Wert-
heim to Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge, Mass.
8. Study of Three Right Nudes with Part of Foot of Reclining
Left Nude
(Fig. 5; originally connected to above drawing; figures are

larger in size than figures in painting)
Red and black chalk heightened with white, 341" x 201"
"R" l.r.
Coll. Hugo Perls, Berlin; present coll. unknown.
9. Study of Reclining Nude and Splashing Nude (Fig. 6)
Pencil, Io}" x 171"
Coll. Wildenstein, N.Y.; present coll. unknown.
Io. Study of Reclining Nude and Splashing Nude with Vertical
Line
Separating the Two Figures (Fig. 7)
Red chalk heightened with white, 12)" x
17j0" "Renoir" 1.1.
Coll. Vollard, Paris; Montag, Zurich and Meudon; Max
Kaganovitch, Paris; since 1968 O'Hana Gallery, London.
iI. Study of Reclining Nude (very close to left figure in the two
pre-
ceding drawings)
Pencil, 87" x? 17"
Coll. Durand-Ruel, Paris; present coll. unknown.
95Letter to Roger-Marx, July Io, I1888 (C. Roger-Marx, Renoir,
Paris,
1937, 68).
96 In the spring of 1892, Renoir again exhibited the Bathers of
1887 (as
owned by M. Jacques Blanche) in the Exposition Renoir in
Durand-
Ruel's gallery.

I 2. Sheet of Studies Related to Reclining Left Nude (Fig. 8;
two studies
of thigh and drapery and one study of head and shoulders)
Pencil, 87" x 138"
Coll. Durand-Ruel, Paris; Marcel Guerin, Paris; Wildenstein,
N.Y.; present coll. unknown.
13. Sheet of Studies Related to Drapery of Two Left Nudes
(Fig. 9)
Pencil, 141" X 9"
Coll. Durand-Ruel, Paris; present coll. unknown.
14. Sheet of Eleven Studies from an Album Page (Fig. Io;
includes four
studies of reclining nude and three studies of central nude
with detailed leaves)
Pencil and pen heightened with watercolor wash, 12" x 18"
"Renoir" 1.r.; other illegible writing at 1.1.
Coll. Durand-Ruel, Paris; Bernheim-Jeune, Paris; since 1936
at Cabinet des Dessins du Louvre, Paris.
I 5. Sheet of Studiesfor Thigh of Reclining Bather, Trees, and
Water
Watercolor and ink (for nude), ink (for landscape),
9-"
x 12"

Coll. Vollard, Paris; E. Slomovic, Belgrade; acquired in 1949
by National Museum, Belgrade.
Ill. D. Rouart, Unknown Degas and Renoir in the National
Museum
ofBelgrade, N.Y., 1964, pl. 103.-
16. Study ofFlowering Tree over Central Nude (Fig. I I)
India ink on canvas, 21i" X 251"
Coll. Andre Schoeller, Paris; Muriel Francis, New Orleans and
New York.
I 7. Sheet with Studies of Two Nudes including Central Seated
Bather with
Raised Arms (Fig. 12)
Pencil, I4-0-" X 99"1
Coll. Viau, Paris; Majorszky, Budapest; Museum of Fine Arts,
Budapest.
18. Study of Right Foreground Nude (Fig. 13)
Pencil, I i7 X7
Coll. Vollard, Paris; Andrd Derain, Chambourey until 1955;
Mr. and Mrs. John Rewald bequest to Fogg Art Museum,
Cambridge, Mass.
19. Study of Splashing Nude (Fig. 14)
Pencil, black, red, and white chalk touched with wash on
brown cardboard, 383" X 25j"
Coll. Adrien H brard, Paris; bequest of Walter and Kate S.

Brewster to Art Institute of Chicago.
Appendix B
Catalogue of Variations and Later Versions of the
"Bathers" of 1887 and Related Drawings
I. Bathers in the Forest, ca. 1897 (Fig. 29)
Canvas, 29" x 391"
Coll. Barnes Foundation, Merion, Pa.
2. Bathers, 1901-03 (Fig. 31)
Oil on canvas, 44" x 65X"
"Renoir" 1.1.
Coll. Vollard, Paris; Etienne Bignou; Wallraf Richartz Mu-
seum, Cologne; Musde du Louvre; Musfe
Massina, Nice.
3. Study of Three Foreground Nudes, 190 1-o3 (Fig. 30)
Brown, white, and red chalk on brown paper, 41" x 64"
"Renoir" 1.1.
Coll. J. Laroche, Paris; bequest in 1947 to Cabinet des Dessins
du Louvre, Paris.
4. Floral Bordered Study of Four Figures and Landscape in
Bathers of
190 I-03
Crayon, 8k" x 131"
Coll. unknown.
5. Bordered Study for Four Figures and Landscape in Bathers of

1901-03
Unknown medium and size.
Coll. unknown.
6. Study ofBust ofRight Standing Nude, 190 1-03
Chalk, 5110" x 42"
"Renoir" 1.1.
Coll. since 1933 at Bibliothbque Nationale, Paris.
Ill. S. Longstreet, Drawings of Renoir, Alhambra, Calif., 1963,
n. pl. (30).
7. Study of Three-Quarters of Body of Left Reclining Bather,
190 o-03
Pastel, size unknown.
Coll. Vollard, Paris; present coll. unknown.
Bibliography of Frequently Cited
Sources
Berard, M., ed., "Lettres de Renoir
'
Paul Berard (1879-1891i),"
La revue de Paris, 1968, 3-7.
Drucker, M., Renoir, Paris, 1944.
Florisoone, M., "Renoir et la famille Charpentier: lettres ind-
dites," L'amour de l'art, XIX, 1938, 31-40.
Perruchot, H., La vie de Renoir, Paris, 1964.
Renoir, J., Renoir My Father, Boston, 1962.
Rewald, J., History of Impressionism, 3rd ed., New York, 1961.

, ed., Camille Pissarro: Lettres a son fils Lucien, Paris, 1950.
, Post-Impressionism: From Van Gogh to Gauguin, New York
[1956].
, Renoir Drawings, New York, 1946.
Riviere, G., Renoir et ses amis, Paris, 1921.
Rouart, D., Correspondance de Berthe Morisot, Paris, 1950.
Venturi, L., Archives de l'impressionnisme . . . , Paris, 1939.
Vollard, A., Auguste Renoir, Paris, 1920.
, Tableaux, pastels,
et dessins de Pierre-Auguste Renoir, 2 vols.,
Paris, 1918.
White, B. E., "An Analysis of Renoir's Development from 1877
to
1887," Ph.D. diss., Columbia University, 1965.
"Renoir's Sensuous Women," in Woman as Sex Object, ed.
Thomas B. Hess and Linda Nochlin, New York, 1972, 166-181.
, "Renoir's Trip to Italy," Art Bulletin, LI, 1969, 333-5 1.
Article Contentsp. [106]p. 107p. 108p. 109p. 110p. 111p. 112p.
113p. 114p. 115p. 116p. 117p. 118p. 119p. 120p. 121p. 122p.
123p. 124p. 125p. 126Issue Table of ContentsThe Art Bulletin,
Vol. 55, No. 1 (Mar., 1973), pp. 1-170Front MatterThe Heracles
Plaques of St. Peter's Cathedra [pp. 1-37]A Note on the
"Arabesques" in the Diatessaron, Florence, Bibl. Laur., Orient.
81 [pp. 38-39]Piacenza Cathedral, Lanfranco, and the School of
Wiligelmo [pp. 40-57]San Bernardino in Glory [pp. 58-
76]Antonio Rizzo's Sarcophagus for Nicolò Tron: A Closer
Look [pp. 77-85]Wenceslaus Hollar in Germany, 1627-1636
[pp. 86-105]The Bathers of 1887 and Renoir's Anti-

Impressionism [pp. 106-126]State of ResearchRecent Books on
Earlier Baroque Architecture in Rome [pp. 127-135]Book
ReviewsReview: untitled [p. 136]Review: untitled [p.
137]Review: untitled [pp. 137-138]Review: untitled [pp. 138-
139]Review: untitled [p. 139]Review: untitled [p. 140]Review:
untitled [pp. 140-142]Review: untitled [pp. 142-145]Review:
untitled [pp. 145-148]Review: untitled [p. 148]Review: untitled
[pp. 148-150]Review: untitled [pp. 150-152]Review: untitled
[pp. 159-160]Review: untitled [pp. 160-161]Letters to the
Editor [pp. 162-164]Correction: Zvart'nots and the Origins of
Christian Architecture in Armenia [pp. 163-164]List of Books
Received [pp. 165-167]Back Matter [pp. 168-170]
Barbara Ehrlich White, “The Bathers of 1887 and Renoir’s Anti-
Impressionism,” The Art Bulletin, Vol. 55, No. 1 (March 1973),
pp. 106-126.
1) What does the precision of technique in the three foreground
bathers in the painting suggest? (p. 107)
2) According to White, why does the author dispute Vollard’s
assertion that Renoir tried to duplicate a fresco technique during
his “sour period”? (p. 107)
3) According to the author, how is Renoir’s Bathers
“aesthetically incongruous”, with particular respect to the
composition and brushstroke? What is its effect and result?
(pp. 107-111)
4) What works of art from his own previous paintings of single
nudes does Renoir’s Bathers recall? (p. 111)
5) According to White, how did the split among the
Impressionist group affect Renoir? (pp. 113-114)

6) According to the author, how may have Renoir’s relationship
with Aline and the birth of their son affect the Bathers? What
proof does White offer? (p. 114)
7) How did Renoir attempt to seek progress and “irregularity”
in his work during 1884-87? (p. 115)
8) According to White, influence from which contemporary
writers in the literary and musical world prompted Renoir’s
divergence from naturalism towards a new classicism? (p. 118)
9) How did the influence of tradition impact Renoir’s aesthetic
shift during his “sour” period? (pp. 119-121)
10) According to the author, why was Renoir vulnerable to the
popular taste of the wealthy class? Which artists did Renoir,
essentially, look to in an attempt to “sell out”? How did Renoir
try to improve his financial situation? How did his peers
respond to this shift and what was the end result? (pp. 121-125)

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