Young Girl Bathing by Renoir

From The Metropolitan Museum of Art Guide, 1983 page 345.

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29 PIERRE RENOIR, French, 1841-1919
Young Girl Bathing
Oil on canvas; 32X25 1/2 in. (81.3 X 64.8 cm.)

In 1892-93 Renoir painted many similar nudes of young girls bathing. This painting, dated 1892, probably exemplifies his method as he described it in 1908: "I arrange my subject as I want it, then go ahead and paint it; like a child I want a red to be sonorous, to sound like a bell; if it doesn't turn out that way, I put on more reds or other colors till I get it. I am no cleverer than that. I have nor rules and no methods; anyone can look at my materials or watch how I paint - he will see that I have no secrets. I look at a nude; there are myriads of tiny tints. I must find the ones that will make the flesh on my canvas live and quiver." The "sonorous reds" and the "myriads of tints" in this painting show Renoir's complete mastery of color. (See also European Paintings, nos. 147 and 148.) Robert Lehman Collection, 1975, 1975.1.199