Nudes in the Forest

Marin’s nudes have been described as his response to the nude bathers of European modernists, principally Paul Cézanne, Henri Matisse, and Pablo Picasso. Yet they were also highly personal symbolic fantasies. Marin referred to his nude models as “real angels” and added, almost protectively, “My clotheless ladies are so camouflaged with the landscape or seascape.” In this painted sketchbook sheet, Marin enclosed his female figures in a protective space that he filled with greenery, trees, and other natural symbols.