Good Night Bather

I recently rephotographed this painting after having varnished it. The colors in this image are much closer to the real effect of the painting than I had achieved in earlier photographs.


This is my favorite of all the paintings I have made. It is the most effective combination of the elements that are most personally important to me stylistically: brilliant colors, an integrated tonal key that allows for glittering highlights, extreme selectivity, and self-assertively solid, 3-dimensional objects.
Apart from stylistic approach, it is also my favorite as a subject for two reasons: It presents a strong female character, which I love in all art, from Antigone to Dominique Francon, and it uses an iconography that goes way back in world art. The subject of the "bather" goes as far back as civilization itself, and I love works of art that take known forms like this one and do something new to them to give them a new expressive purpose.

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