The Tub

In 1886 the Impressionists held their eighth show, and it turned out to be their last as a group. Degas hung a suite of women washing themselves, and this pastel was among them. There is no story, no mythology, none of the flattering poses that a nude was supposed to strike. A woman crouches in a shallow tin tub, sponging the back of her neck, seen from above as if you had walked in without knocking. On the shelf beside her sit a jug, a comb, the ordinary tools of a Paris morning. Critics argued over whether this counted as beauty at all. Degas kept working the pastel in layers, building the skin and the copper basin out of dry chalk rubbed and stroked until it holds the light.