Bathing Young Men

Bathing Young Men from 1904 is a late contribution to Munch's extended bathing series, depicting adolescent or young adult males at the shore in a moment of physical freedom and collective male enjoyment that contrasts with the psychologically charged isolation of many of his major works. The painting was made at Åsgårdstrand or a similar Norwegian coastal location; Munch was interested in the bathing subjects partly as an opportunity to depict the male body in movement and partly as a way of engaging with the Norwegian coastal tradition of sea bathing as a healthy, democratic activity. The Munch Museum holds this as part of its collection of his more relaxed, naturalistic works.

Munch applies a bright summer palette to the bathing scene, with the young men's bodies rendered in the warm tones of sunlit flesh against the cooler blue-grey of the water. The composition is relatively loose and open, the figures placed in a convincing space of beach and water rather than the flattened surfaces of his Symbolist works.