Bathing Nymphs

The subject of the naked woman located in a natural setting had been native to Venice since Giorgione and the early Titian. Yet never before had the emphasis been so clearly on working out the figure in a three-dimensional manner, stressing the linear contour of the complex assembly and interplay of female figures. Palma adopted here the movement motifs of the sculptors of antiquity and drew on the repertoire of such Mannerist contemporaries as Giulio Romano. The sensuous surface texture typically found in Venetian art has given way here to a porcelain-like coolness.