Description
Seven or more bathers occupy a forest clearing around a still pool: one reclines across the foreground on pink and white drapery beside a flowered hat, pairs of figures embrace or lean together near the water, and others stand adjusting their hair beneath a canopy of tall trees. Reddish and auburn hair recurs through the group, tying the figures together across the wide canvas.
Painted in 1897 and held by the Barnes Foundation, the large canvas (74 by 100 cm) is one of Renoir’s fullest Arcadian bather scenes, the forest setting doing as much work as the figures themselves. The print is built to keep the individual groupings legible across that wide format, so the composition doesn’t collapse into a single mass of pink at smaller sizes.



