Reclining Nude (La Source)

Reclining Nude (La Source), 1895, is a classic Renoir bather subject combining the horizontal reclining nude—drawing on a tradition extending from Giorgione's Sleeping Venus through Velázquez, Goya, and Manet—with the natural outdoor or ambiguous setting he preferred over the academic studio nude. The title La Source (The Spring) associates the figure with water and nature, a conjunction central to his late figurative philosophy. The Barnes Foundation canvas belongs to his most productive bather decade when this subject type dominated his largest and most ambitious canvases.

The horizontal composition allows Renoir to build the reclining figure across the full canvas width, modelling the nude with soft, long strokes following the body's contours. Warm flesh tones are placed against cooler greens and blues of the surrounding landscape or water, creating the complementary colour dynamic that animates his best bather paintings.