Fêtes and Folly: The Large Bathers

Auguste Renoir
Renoir, The Large Bathers, 1887

By MEGAN GANNON 
I present to you the 1887 edition of Girls Gone Wild. The boobs are free and the girls intoxicated. Sitting on the bank of the French Rivera as if it were Las Playas of Cancun. 

The breakdown of the squad goes like this. Our Voluminous Brunette most likely reigns as den mother keeping an eye on her ducklings as they venture into the world of red solo cups and bad pick-up lines. She warns them of men and reminds them to NEVER, and I mean NEVER set their drink down. 

The young woman glued to her side acts a loyal sidekick refusing to party unless she has her mother. Our braided friend represents the craziness of the group, the one who somehow always ends up on top of a table. As for the two in the background they only have one thing on their mind. The party tonight! In the midst of swimming they plan their provocative outfits and take guesses about the type of men who will be attending. 

You might be thinking that although my evidence convincing, The Large Bathers by Renoir does not completely capture spring break due to the lack of salivating men. Don’t worry I’m sure they exist beyond the canvas. To the criticisms I offer two things. First who wants to see men in Girls Gone Wild and second the absence of men in the painting helps to stress the sisterhood motif. With a man the painting would give off a predator vibe and destroy the happiness felt by the women enjoying their bodies and the sun. 

Yes, spring break is known for rampant partying and booze, but with The Large Bathers we see the other side of it - these women express their hot bods because they can...and they enjoy each other’s company to boot. 

*** Editor's Note: Students developed the topic of Fêtes and Folly to chronicle elegant celebrations, bad dates, late nights, or other things related to that time in Spring where barbaric yawps can be heard from backyards, beaches, or the more familiar rooftop. Enjoy their revelry, cheeky overstatement, and occasional tales of ribaldry over the next couple of weeks.

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The Large Bathers

Bathers
Paul Cezanne, The Large Bathers, 1905

Cezanne is a master of modern art, known for his pallet knife paintings. His painting Les Grandes Baigneuses is one of the very last paintings he worked on, as well as the largest of his paintings. I can easily tell how he is able to achieve balance through geometry, color, and figures, but its fairly obvious. You really don't need a Senior Art History student to see that. What makes the paining so great are the female forms he captures and the way he executes them. Female nudes as a subject is not ne,  but the commonality of the scene is what Cezanne is doing differently than the past. What he captures through his paints is an intimate moment, where all of the subjects are focused on themselves. While some of the proportions are certainly off, the colors he uses to add contrast within the skin tones, as well as leaving parts of the canvas exposed to peer out, gives the painting its modern feel as it steers towards abstraction.

The most interesting fact about Cezanne's The Large Bathers is its impact. At first this painting, along with others in the series, were not seen as masterpieces to the public. However, the works made quite the impact with his contemporaries. You can see how this painting might have influenced the styles of artist like Picasso, Matisse, and Gauguin. In fact, Cezanne, being a master of his craft, was looked up to by many artists, some destined to become masters themselves. Picasso considered Cezanne to be "his one and only master" and Matisse commented:  "At critical moments in my artistic adventure it gave me courage; I drew from it my faith and endurance." These artists would go on to paint figures within landscapes that if someone were to put their works side by side The Large Bathers,  he or she would find some of similarities and influences.

This painting is so influential because the creativity Cezanne has placed on this canvas is inspiring yet not entirely obvious. The way he's able to sculpt these figures into this formation and also thread them into the landscape creates a harmony within the painting. Everything beings to work together. Having said all of this, there has been a great debate as to whether the painting was actually "completed." Being the last painting Cezanne worked on, some claim that due to the style and its rough appearance, Cezanne was still in the process doing the preliminary sketching of the figures. Either way the contrast between the bare canvas and the energy of his colors adds another dimension to the painting that has effected the way we address modern art.




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