Nude

Nude from 1895, held at the National Gallery of Art, dates from the middle of Renoir's long engagement with the female nude, after his harsh-manner experiments of the 1880s and before the fully rounded late style. By the mid-1890s Renoir had found the approach that would characterise his remaining work: figures seen in warm, ambient light, surfaces unified by a golden tonality, and the nude treated as both formal problem and sensuous embodiment. The NGA's significant Renoir holdings include works across his career, and this mid-period nude represents the stabilised mature style before the full physical limitation of his final years.

Oil on canvas. The 1895 nude demonstrates Renoir's recovered balance after the dry-manner crisis: paint is applied with visible confidence, the figure modelled through warm tone rather than linear edge. The background's gestural treatment contrasts with the more carefully attended figure, typical of Renoir's prioritisation hierarchy.