Four Bathers (Quatre baigneuses)

Discussion

FROM THE BARNES FOUNDATION’S CATALOG

Four nude female figures pose by the edge of a pool in a glade. The bathers theme originated in the Renaissance, symbolizing the harmony of nature and the female body. Cézanne alluded to this tradition by quoting famous classical sculpture: the standing figure, for instance, stretches her arm in imitation of an athlete by Lysippos, the classical Greek sculptor. But Cézanne departed from the classical ideal—and from the current impressionist concern with the fleeting effects of light and atmosphere—to search for the structure undergirding the figures and the landscape.

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