The Bather

Camille Pissarro

National Gallery of Art

A pale-skinned woman standing on a riverbank holds a white cloth against her mostly nude body in this vertical landscape painting. Painted with pine and celery green, tawny brown, watery blue, and peach, the short, tightly packed strokes create a blurred effect. The woman takes up the lower right quadrant of the composition. Her body and face angle to our right, and she looks down in that direction. Her blond hair is swept up and back, and her face is flushed pink. The white cloth she holds across her thighs is shaded with ice blue. An indistinct pile of amethyst purple, marine blue, and brown by her feet suggest discarded clothing. The tree behind her curves up to fill the top third with its verdant canopy. To our left, the river is painted in cool tones of white, petal pink, and slate blue, and flows from the lower left toward a line of trees in the middle distance. Their fresh greens are reflected in the water’s surface and ivory-colored clouds almost fill the power-blue sky above them. The artist signed and dated the lower left, “C.Pissarro.95.”