But it was Renoir who was one of the greatest interpreters of the female body, which he transcribed in a realistic manner, but with a certain degree of adoration that conferred an air of idealized perfection. In the Baigneuse au griffon (1870) he was inspired by an engraving on the Aphrodite of Cnidus, while the compositional concept is taken from Courbet. Renoir sought to synthesize the canonical classicist posture with an air of natural reality, in luminous and evocative environments that conveyed a serene and placid vision of nudity, an ideal of communion with nature. He strove to dilute the outline of his figures, following the impressionist technique, through a mottling of space with patches of light and shadow, inspired by the Venetian school to capture the form through color, as seen in Anna (1876) and Torso (1876). Later, in an attempt to simplify the nude, he was inspired by the frescoes of Raphael's La Farnesina, as well as the paintings of Pompeii and Herculaneum, as is evident in La Baigneuse blonde (1882). In the Les Grandes baigneuses (1885–1887) he painted sculptural nudes, inspired by the Fountain of the Nymphs of Girardon (Versailles), with fluid lines and a great sense of relief. In his last works he was influenced by Alexandrian Hellenism, Michelangelesque mannerism and the baroque style of Boucher and Clodion, with plump figures of exuberant appearance and natural attitude towards the body and the surrounding environment, generally rivers, lakes, forests and beaches (Seated Bathing Girl, 1885; Bathing Girl drying herself, 1895; The Judgment of Paris, 1908–1910; Bathers, 1916).
