Edgar Degas - After the Bath Notebook

After the Bath (Après le bain), made around 1895 in pastel, tempera and charcoal on grey paper mounted on cardboard by French Impressionist painter Edgar Degas. The figure is absorbed in the ordinary routine that follows bathing, with the body folded into a compact pose rather than arranged for a formal presentation. Degas builds the image through layers of dry pastel, opaque tempera and charcoal, allowing the grey support to remain active between strokes of colour. The close viewpoint and cropped setting turn a private domestic gesture into a study of weight, balance and texture. In his late bathing scenes, Degas repeatedly varied such everyday movements, treating the body as a changing structure observed from unusual angles.