athena art foundation — Taking a Dip: August Pick of the Month

Paul Cézanne, *The Bathers,* c.1899-1904, oil on canvas, 51.3 × 61.7 cm, Art Institute of Chicago (Image: Wikipedia)

This summer at The Art Institute of Chicago, a major retrospective of French painter Paul Cézanne (1839-1906) is taking place for the first time in more than 70 years. Planned in coordination with Tate Modern in London, the project brings together more than 80 oil paintings, 40 watercolours and drawings, and two complete sketchbooks. Visitors are presented with a wonderful range of Cézanne’s subjects and series, from his little-known early allegorical paintings, to his portraits, Impressionist landscapes and paintings of his favourite mountain Montagne Sainte Victoire.

Of course, the retrospective also includes a selection of Cézanne’s bather scenes. In total, around 200 of Cézanne’s works depict male and female nude bathers, either singly or in groups, in a landscape. In some ways, his bathers often seem to echo earlier art historical paintings of bathing nymphs and goddesses, but the scenes also lack any distinct narrative, and in many ways seem more preoccupied with the use of colour, composition and the interactions between humans and natural landscapes. For our August Pick of the Month, we thought we would take a look at a selection of bathers as depicted by other artists over the centuries - not least because, for many of us, a refreshing swim is much needed in the summer heat!

**Lucas Cranach the Elder’s The Fountain of Youth (1546)**

This oil painting by the German painter Lucas Cranach the Elder (1472-1553) shows a fountain where women - both old and young - can be seen bathing and indulging in music, food and dance. In many ways, the fountain seems to represent the human desire for immortality and eternal youth: the older women can be seen plunging into the water in the hope that its magical qualities might restore their youthfulness. Some even arrive in carts and stretchers, presumably having traveled from afar for the chance to return to youth. Perhaps the young women we see are the older women after their transformation? Still, these allegorical possibilities also relate to the reality of bathing culture at this time in Western Europe: it was widely believed that certain public baths had the power to rejuvenate and heal. The details in the painting - such as a robing tent (like changing rooms) - give us a sense of what contemporary bathing culture looked like.

Lucas Lucas Cranach the Elder, *The Fountain of Youth,* 1546, oil on canvas, 186.1 x 120.6 cm, Gemäldegalerie, Berlin (Image: Wikipedia)

**Kitagawa Utamaro’s The Awabi Fishers (c.1797-8)**

Kitagawa Utamaro, *The Awabi Fishers,* c.1797-8, ink and colour on paper, 38.4 x 73.2 cm, The Met, New York (Image: The Met)

The Awabi Fishers is a triptych of three multicolour woodblock prints made by Japanese ukiyo-e artist Kitagawa Utamaro (c.1753-1806) and published around 1797-8. Utamaro made a number of prints such as these depicting ama divers; women who dived for shellfish, pearls or (as here) haliotis abalone sea snails (a trade which has existed on Japanese coasts for two thousand years, and still remains today). A kyōka poem on the right print reads: ‘More tempting than the flesh of the abalone is the skin of the diver’. Indeed, prints such as these were highly eroticised. Ama divers were perceived as socially and sexually free, although also as less feminine and elegant as the high-class geishas and courtesans who were usually the subjects in ukiyo-e art. Utamaro plays with these contrasts by depicting the ama divers in the elegant poses of geishas, but still nude and dishevelled. The fact that there is no censor seal may indicate that the picture was not widely acceptable at the time.

**Titian’s Diana and Actaeon (1556-69)**

In the myth of Diana and Actaeon, from Ovid’s Metamorphoses, the moment in which the young hunter accidentally stumbles upon Diana (Goddess of the Hunt) bathing with her nymphs was particularly popular during the Renaissance period; as exemplified here by Titian’s painting. Moments before, Diana had clearly been calmly bathing in a relaxing pastoral setting, and has been abruptly disturbed by Actaeon who sweeps back the pink curtain by mistake. Diana’s arm is raised defensively, and draws attention to her furrowed brow. Below her, a small dog - in contrast to Actaeon’s hunting hound on the opposite side - barks angrily at the intruder. Helping Diana to cover herself up is a dark-skinned woman who is the only female figure in the painting to be shown fully clothed. Her attire is distinctly exoticising; her red earring, blue ribbons in her hair and the vibrant white and orange dress which falls off her shoulder all conform to the established conventions at the time for ‘visually communicating European social hierarchies of race’, as Shereka Mosley explains.

Titian, *Diana and Actaeon,* 1556-69, oil on canvas, 185 x 202 cm, National Gallery and Scottish National Gallery, London and Edinburgh (Image: Wikipedia)

**Winslow Homer’s The Bather (1899)**

This watercolour painting was made by Homer during his second visit to the Bahamas at the end of the 19th century. During this trip, he seems to have been particularly interesting in depicting young black men in water and sunlight, with a clear emphasis on physical strength and sensuality; traits which were in line with the view of the Bahamas as a health-boosting destination for sickly white tourists at the time. As the Met description explains: ‘Inherent in the images is a tension related to racial politics and class disparities, as the older White artist recorded the robust young Black men.’ We might read a certain tension in the posture of the young man, who seems to stand up in the water with his right arm at a stiff angle. Behind him, a Union Jack flag flies high on the breeze, reminding viewers of the British colonial rule in the Bahamas at the time.

Winslow Homer, *The Bather,* 1899, watercolour and graphite on paper, 36.7 x 53.5 cm, The Met, New York (Image: The Met)

**Jean-Honoré Fragonard’s The Bathers (c.1761-5)**

Fragonard’s depiction of bathers encapsulates the hedonism and exuberance of his style, which was typical of the Rococo movement in Europe at the time. The group of nude female bathers seem to be almost falling over each other and, when we look closely, the perspective and scale is strangely inaccurate. One woman has her arms up in the air as she sways backwards, and another woman in the bottom left corner looks up at her from the water, where there are other blurred figures in the background. The detailed foliage of the trees and green grass, flowing fabrics and fluffy clouds all seem to blur together to create an overwhelming sense of lightness and airiness in this painting. As an admirer of Dutch painters such as Peter Paul Rubens and Frans Hals, we can see here how Fragonard has used loose and vigorous brushstrokes in a similar way.