Dip (The Artist’s Garden at Saint-Clair)

In Dip (The Artist’s Garden at Saint-Clair), Tomlinson continues the Reclining Nude sequence through an appropriation of Henri-Edmond Cross’s watercolour The Artist’s Garden at Saint-Clair, adopting its luminous landscape as both setting and structure.

In this version, the bather is no longer visible. The figure has disappeared entirely from the image, leaving only a small disturbance on the water’s surface—a subtle ripple. The scene remains bright and decorative, its painterly surface intact, yet the absence of the figure introduces a quiet uncertainty. The ripple suggests a recent movement into the water: whether an attempt to escape the encroaching fire established in the preceding works, or a surrender to it, remains unresolved.