This is the largest, the last, and in many ways the most ambitious work from Cezanne's lifelong exploration of the bather motif. In creating the scene, he relied on memory and the figure studies he had made in his youth rather than working with live models (perhaps due to a lack of professional models in Aix-an-Provence, France, or concern for village gossip if he hired local women).
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This scene, with its synthesis of bathers and landscape, achieves the grandeur of classical art in combination with an unresolved awkwardness. The stillness of the bathers, the mysterious figures on the far shore, and the undecipherable activity of the women in the foreground attest to Cezanne's undiminished drive to reinterpret this time-honored subject for his day.
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