Degas
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An Analysis of Degas' The Tub, 1886
In 1886, during the eighth and final showing of the Impressionists, critics and patrons were presented with Degas' exhibit, featuring two pictures from the modistes series that showcased the familiar subjects of milliners, along with ten paintings described in the catalogue as "a series of nudes of women bathing, washing, drying, rubbing down, combing their hair or having it combed." The nudes featured unidealized, unglamourized women in a myriad of different positions and from many different angles. The women were most often alone, in intimate positions, and seen from behind with their faces hidden. They were shown going about daily rituals in their bathroom or boudoir, and seemingly unabashed as if caught in the moment without any fear of being seen. Degas said, "the nude has always been represented in poses which presupposed an audience, but these women of mine are honest, simple folk, unconcerned by any other interests than those involved in their physical condition. It is though you looked through a keyhole."i
The public did not know how to react to these pictures for they were outside the scope of what was seen of women, both socially and in art. Here were women, without the prim and proper made-up "face" that they wore for society, but instead as her mirror or lover would see her. Degas began painting these nudes because he felt as though traditional nudes were no longer meaningful. He explained that, "two hundred years ago [he] would have made paintings of 'Susanna and the Elders' and [today] I paint women in the tub (referring to the nude that Rembrandt had painted two centuries earlier)...