Bathers

This is one of Cézanne’s first paintings of bathers, a subject that engaged him for the rest of his career. Although fascinated by the nude human figure, the artist worked slowly and was uncomfortable with female models, so he derived such scenes from his imagination and his rich knowledge of classical and Renaissance art. The rhythmic poses of the women, displaying their bodies from different angles, recur, with variations, in Cézanne’s later work. However, he soon tempered the bright, high-keyed palette, favored by his Impressionist colleagues. (Source: The Metropolitan Museum of Art)