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Cézanne’s most ambitious project in his final years was the series of three monumental scenes of bathers in a landscape, which he executed at Les Lauves. He had treated the theme of bathers for many years, not only in oil paintings such as Four Bathers, 1888–1890, but also in many watercolor studies such as Group of Bathers, c. 1900. The subject had personal associations for Cézanne, for it conjured up his idyllic youth spent swimming in the River Arc with his friends. The theme of nude figures in a landscape enjoyed a long tradition in the history of European painting. By addressing the subject in monumental paintings, Cézanne staked his claim as a successor to the old masters. At the same time, all three versions of the Large Bathers are radically modern paintings. As evidenced by the The Large Bathers from London, 1894–1905, Cézanne daringly dispensed with conventional ideas of draftsmanship and perspective, leaving passages that are seemingly unresolved despite the thick layering of paint. The Large Bathers is a shocking picture, not least because of the artist’s willful disregard for human anatomy and classical notions of beauty. The rawness of its aesthetic alarmed many contemporary viewers. Yet it is also a supremely serene image, constructed with lushly applied, radiant colors, and filled with light. As a group, the three Large Bathers canvases stand as Cézanne's last great artistic testament. |
