The Crisis of the Salon Nude and a Search for its Resolution

Abstract

This article concerns the work of Raphaël Collin and his effort–and failure in the eyes of critics–to overcome the ideological obstacles that he and other painters of the Salon nude encountered at the end of the nineteenth century. Critics often found his nudes perplexing because of the figures' lack of solidity; rather than paint ‘real’ bodies, Collin seemed to be painting with great frequency the ghostly presence of them. He attempted to reinvigorate the female nude at times by nearly erasing the female body from the canvas. Furthermore, he clumsily mixed traditional academic techniques of painting with distinct visual qualities found in the paintings of Pierre Puvis de Chavannes. Collin's attempt to incorporate some aspects of Puvis's achievement serves only to demonstrate the intensity of the Academy's final crisis. This effort is most strangely evident in Collin's 1892 Au bord de la mer, a painting analysed in relation to the critical reaction to the image.