Bathers in front of a tend

Bathers in Front of a Tent of 1884, now at the Staatsgalerie Stuttgart, introduces the unusual element of a tent or awning as a structural feature within the bather composition, creating a sheltering architectural form against which the figures' bodies can be read. This domestic or camping element—the tent suggests an outing rather than a mythological setting—was unusual in Cézanne's bather work, which more commonly placed the figures within pure landscape. The Stuttgart canvas shows him experimenting with the setting's formal possibilities without the conventional classical dignity of bathing nymphs.

The tent's angular geometric form provides a strong structural counterpoint to the rounded organic forms of the bathers' bodies and the surrounding vegetation. Cézanne uses this architectural element to create the kind of formal dialogue between geometric and organic shapes that he pursued more typically through the juxtaposition of figures and trees.