"Le Bain... has proved as defiant in execution as it had been in conception... [H]e abandoned , a technique perfected by Leonardo da Vinci and exploited by successful Salon painters... Manet... did away with most... half-tones—the transitions between highlights and shadows—such that his figures... looked harshly lit. ...Since an optical illusion makes light colors advance and dark ones recede, most artists painted a dark undercoat... la sauce.., a transluscent mixture of linseed oil, turpentine and often bitumen... Manet... after The Absinthe Drinker, working instead on canvases treated with off-white primers... gave Le Bain a greater luminosity... at the expense of... spatial recession [depth]. ...Painters were usually trained to create a subtle relief on the surface... Dark colors, such as... for shadows, were spread very thin while highlights were "loaded" or "impasted"... in thick layers... [T]ogether with the darker undercoat... whites would advance and the darks retreat. ...Manet boldly disregarded this practice in Le Bain... Though a few... as Gèricault and Courbet, had... experimented with this technique, the boldness of Manet's application witnessed... a new direction in art."