The Large Bathers

Cezanne worked on The Large Bathers from 1898 until his death in 1906. It is the largest and last of his three major bather compositions, and it is considered one of the foundational paintings of modern art. A group of female nudes are arranged in a landscape, some standing, some seated, some leaning toward the ground. The figures are built in broad, simplified forms, with no individual faces or anatomy. Trees frame the composition on both sides, their trunks rising to an arch of leaves at the top of the canvas. A river or pool is suggested in the background. The canvas is enormous, roughly 83 by 99 inches, landscape format. The colors are cool: blues, greens, and the pale flesh tones of the figures. Cezanne painted three large bather compositions in the last decade of his life. This one, the largest, is in the Philadelphia Museum of Art. The other two are in the Barnes Foundation and the National Gallery in London. He worked on all three over several years, and none of them are finished. The Philadelphia painting has areas of bare canvas, particularly in the sky and the upper trees. Cezanne was 59 when he began this painting. He was living in Aix-en-Provence, painting every day, and his reputation was growing. The bather compositions were an attempt to paint the classical subject of nudes in a landscape using the methods he had developed over 40 years of painting. He built the figures from patches of color, not from anatomical knowledge, and the result is a scene that looks both ancient and new. Oil on canvas, 210.5 by 250.8 centimeters. Cezanne painted with a cool palette of blues, greens, and flesh tones, building the figures in broad, parallel strokes. The trees are vertical bands of green and blue. The sky is thin, unfinished, with areas of bare canvas showing through. This painting works in a living room, hallway, or entryway with enough wall space for a large print. The cool palette and monumental scale suit a room with white walls and minimal furniture. The 18x24 framed version in a white frame is the most versatile size. The painting is in the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the George W. Elkins Collection. This is a public domain artwork, sourced from Wikimedia Commons. We print it on archival matte paper at sizes from 8x10 to 24x36 inches, framed or unframed. The image is printed at full resolution with no cropping.