CÉZANNE, DEGAS, RENOIR

Paul Cézanne, Edgar Degas, and Renoir were the greatest exponents of the nude within the Impressionist circle, though each would interpret the subject through his own particular approach. All three studied life drawing as part of their early academic training, even if Cézanne, at the Académie Suisse “made nudes that prompted laughter,” as Camille Pissarro later recalled. Cézanne’s interest in equilibrium, weight, and form dominated his canvases, with light and color also playing prominent roles. Degas’s commitment to Naturalism and concern for pose and gesture permeate his approach. And Renoir, as brilliantly demonstrated by Study. Torso of a Woman in the Sunlight was fascinated by the body as a site of multiple sensory experiences.  

Offering the first-ever comprehensive investigation of Renoir’s nudes, Renoir: The Body, The Senses was published by the Clark Art Institute and edited by the exhibition’s curators, Esther Bell, Robert and Martha Berman Lipp Chief Curator of the Clark Art Institute, and George T. M. Shackelford, deputy director of the Kimbell Art Museum. This beautifully illustrated catalogue includes essays by Colin B. Bailey, Morgan Library & Museum; Martha Lucy, Barnes Foundation; Nicole R. Myers, Dallas Museum of Art; and Sylvie Patry, Musée d’Orsay; with an interview between contemporary figurative painter Lisa Yuskavage and Alison de Lima Greene, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.