French artistic training in the 19th C centered on the nude figure, which was easily incorporated into paintings with classical subjects. Artists of modern life who wanted to put their training to use took up bathers as a subject, as Anders Zorn’s Against the Current illustrates the topic. My actual inspiration for the scene in which Jeanette, Amy, and Emily go swimming at Pont Aven was his painting Out, for which I cannot find a large reproduction online. I loved the way the figures in that painting are tonally part of the landscape, as they are in a related painting Opal.
EDIT: Well! Late in the day of this post, I have just double-checked the link to Zorn's Opal and been taken to the correct write-up but the wrong painting at the Worcester Art Museum. A weird computer glitch, which I hope becomes self-correcting. At least, the Eakins and Cezanne links below work!
Thomas Eakins’ Swimming Hole may be the best known American painting to show off the painter’s skill with figures while apparently simply recording an everyday scene. In contrast, Paul Cézanne extended the theme into explorations of form that catapult art into Post-Impressionism. For four examples, click here.
EDIT: Well! Late in the day of this post, I have just double-checked the link to Zorn's Opal and been taken to the correct write-up but the wrong painting at the Worcester Art Museum. A weird computer glitch, which I hope becomes self-correcting. At least, the Eakins and Cezanne links below work!
Thomas Eakins’ Swimming Hole may be the best known American painting to show off the painter’s skill with figures while apparently simply recording an everyday scene. In contrast, Paul Cézanne extended the theme into explorations of form that catapult art into Post-Impressionism. For four examples, click here.
