The Bathers

"The Bathers", or in French "Les Baigneuses", can refer to the following:

The Bathers (Cézanne)

The Bathers (French: Les Grandes Baigneuses) is an oil painting by French artist Paul Cézanne first exhibited in 1906. The painting is the largest of a series of "Bather" paintings by Cézanne; the others are in the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, National Gallery, London, the Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia, and the Art Institute of Chicago. Occasionally referred to as the Big Bathers or Large Bathers to distinguish it from the smaller works, the painting is considered one of the masterpieces of modern art, and is often considered Cézanne's finest work.

Cézanne worked on the painting for seven years, and it remained unfinished at the time of his death in 1906. The painting was purchased in 1937 for $110,000 with funds from a trust fund for the Philadelphia Museum of Art by their major benefactor Joseph E. Widener. It was previously owned by Leo Stein.

With each version of the bathers, Cézanne moved away from the traditional presentation of paintings, intentionally creating works which would not appeal to the novice viewer. He did this in order to avoid fleeting fads and give a timeless quality to his work, and in so doing paved the way for future artists to disregard current trends and paint pieces which would appeal equally to all generations. The abstract nude females present in Large Bathers give the painting tension and density. It is exceptional among his work in symmetrical dimensions, with the adaption of the nude forms to the triangular pattern of the trees and river. Using the same technique as employed in painting landscapes and still lifes, Large Bathers is reminiscent of the work of Titian and Peter Paul Rubens. Comparisons are also often made with the other famous group of nude women of the same period, Picasso's Les Demoiselles d'Avignon.

The Bathers (Renoir)

The Bathers (French: Les Baigneuses) is an oil painting on canvas made between 1918 and 1919 by the French painter Pierre-Auguste Renoir. After being given to the State by his three sons in 1923, it is currently kept at the Musée d'Orsay in Paris.

There are two groups of naked women: two models lying in the foreground plus three bathers in the background, on the right. One of the models of this painting is Andrée Hessling, who became the first wife of Renoir's son, Jean. The natural setting displayed in the painting was the large garden of the house owned by the painter in Cagnes-sur-Mer.

In the painting, Renoir removed any reference to the contemporary world and showed "a timeless nature". The theme of the bather is predominant in the final season of Renoir's paintings: the women portrayed by the painter are free and uninhibited. These bathers are "melted in the nature and the forms merge with the trees, flowers and the shares of red water".

The painting received criticism because of "the enormousness of the legs and arms, the weakness of flesh, and the pinkish color of the models".