Before the Bath (Avant le bain)

Discussion

FROM THE BARNES FOUNDATION’S CATALOG

When Renoir first exhibited this painting publicly, at an 1875 auction in Paris, audiences were shocked by its naturalism. Rather than depicting a dreamy Greek goddess or another figure from mythology, as had been the tradition in European painting, Renoir gives us an ordinary Frenchwoman in her bedroom, with hair under her arms and rumpled bedclothes in the background.

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