La Toilette
Édouard Manet·1879
Historical Context
Painted in 1879 as a pastel and now at the Kunsthaus Zürich, La Toilette belongs to the series of intimate female figure scenes that Manet explored in the late 1870s alongside his more formally ambitious café and outdoor subjects. The toilet scene — a woman performing private grooming rituals — had a tradition in French art stretching from Boucher through Degas, and Manet's contribution is characterised by his typically direct, unsentimental approach. Pastel was a medium he used increasingly in the late 1870s and early 1880s, finding it suited his preference for decisive, non-reworkable marks.
Technical Analysis
Pastel allowed Manet an even more immediate response to the figure than oil — strokes of chalk cannot be blended into smooth transitions, forcing the same directness he sought in paint. The figure's back and the fabric of her clothing are built with confident parallel strokes of warm and cool pastel. The effect is simultaneously sketchy and completely resolved, each mark landing exactly as intended.
