Bathers

• Paul Cézanne (1839–1906)
• 1874–1875
• Oil on canvas
• Bequest of Joan Whitney Payson, 1975
• (1976.201.12)

This is one of Paul Cézanne’s early paintings of bathers, depicting six nude women in an idyllic landscape. The figures take various poses—reclining, seated, or stretching. Cézanne applied paint with broad and heavy brushstrokes characteristic of his style. The women’s faces are rendered indistinctly, leaving it to viewers to imagine whether they are mythological beings or contemporary figures.