The Bathers, small plate (Les baigneurs, petit planche)

The Bathers, small plate (Les baigneurs, petit planche) is a significant lithograph created by Paul Cézanne in 1897. This print belongs to a crucial period late in the French Post-Impressionist master’s career, where the classical motif of nude figures within a stylized landscape became a central vehicle for formal experimentation. Cézanne returned repeatedly to the theme of bathers for decades, using the subject not for narrative storytelling, but as a framework for structural and planar organization. The composition of this small plate relates directly to the much larger oil paintings on the subject, demonstrating the artist’s consistent effort to solve the perennial artistic challenge of integrating the figure into nature.

Unlike his canvases, this work offers insight into Cézanne’s engagement with the specific qualities of graphic media. As a lithograph, the image is built upon drawn lines and tonal washes applied directly to the stone or plate, allowing the resulting The Bathers, small plate to emphasize line and abstract form with stark clarity. The figures are arranged geometrically, integrated seamlessly into the environment through simplified, interlocking shapes. The deliberate distortion of the bodies serves to reinforce the overall triangular or arched structure of the design, anticipating the formal concerns that would characterize early 20th-century modernism.

The 1897 date situates this piece shortly before Cézanne began his final, monumental series of oil paintings dedicated to the bathers theme. The creation of such prints ensured the wider dissemination of Cézanne’s radical compositions among the Parisian avant-garde, greatly influencing generations of subsequent artists including Pablo Picasso. The availability of high-quality prints facilitated the study of his unique vision long before his full retrospective was realized. This vital work of modern graphic art, representative of the core tenets of French Post-Impressionism, is housed in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA).