David BOMBERG - The mud bath (1914)

 

The mud bath

1914
Oil painting on canvas (152,5x224 cm)
Tate Gallery, London

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At first glance, it seems that this painting does not have the slightest figurative intention. In truth, the work is intended to represent a public bathroom frequented by the Jewish community of Whitechapel in London.

The blue and white lines and figures make up the jumping figures that gather around the pool, represented by the red rectangle and seem to surround the dark central pillar.

The angular forms are used by our painter to express the vitality and dynamism of the twentieth century and the enthusiasm for recent industrial development.

Bomberg, the son of Polish immigrants, was one of the founders of the London Group, an association founded in 1913 for the organization of shows and exhibitions.

Although Bomberg kept his distance from Cubists, Futurists and Vorticists, groups active at the time, his work can easily be identified with some of their theories.

By 1920 Bomberg moved from geometric shapes to a more figurative style, often using vibrant colors and expressive brushstrokes.

Comparing artistis: Bellows, Boccioni, Braque, Lewis, Nash, Picasso