R"Femme Couchee (Tournee a Gauche)"

RENOIR, PIERRE AUGUSTE
(1841 - 1919)
Femme Nue Couchée (tournée à gauche)
Nude Woman Reclining, Facing Left
Delteil 15, Stella 15
Etching, c. 1906Second State
Signature in plate “Renoir” lower right
As published in Théodore Duret, Die ImpressionistenBerlin, B. Cassirer, 1909
Strong tonal impression
Renoir shared the Impressionists’ liking of returning repeatedly to a subject in a series of very varied works, as he did with his Reclining Nude: he derives continuing pleasure from her in the three small variations, each in a different style.
The first plate has a very smooth line of the drypoint; the second is unadorned, like a working drawing; the third has the vibrant quality of an etching.
Renoir used etching and drypoint as a means of enhancing the willowy curves of the model’s very real body, but managed to avoid the excesses of fashionable prettiness characteristic of so many fin de siécle artists. Here is another example of the artist, starting with one and the same motif, has created works that are diametrically opposed in terms of technique and yet achieve similarly harmonious results. The luminosity and flowing curve of the body are suggested in the one case by feathery drypoint incisions, in the second by the vibrant purity of the etched line, and in the third by small separate hatching strokes in the manner of the Venetian etchers or of Manet.
A Partial Listing of Public Collections: Bibliothéque Nationale, Paris

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