Standing Bather, Seen from the Back

Standing Bather, Seen from the Back (c.1880) at the Art Institute of Chicago is an early example of the single standing bather figure that Cézanne would develop over the following decade into The Bather at MoMA. The rear view was a compositional choice with significant precedent — Ingres had used the seen-from-behind nude as a subject of formal concentration, and the tradition extended through Degas's bathing women. For Cézanne, the rear view had specific advantages: it eliminated the sitter's facial expression and direct gaze, allowing the body to be treated as a purely formal object, a series of curved and planar forms in space without psychological or social content. By 1880 his mature method was emerging, and this figure study shows the systematic parallel stroke building volume across the figure's back. The Art Institute's holding places this alongside the mature bather and landscape works that document Cézanne's development through the 1880s.

The figure seen from behind is modeled through the faceted planes of Cézanne's developing constructive brushstroke, each passage of paint establishing both the form's surface and its orientation in space. The warm flesh tones are built up in parallel strokes that create a structured, almost sculptural solidity unusual in Impressionist figure painting.