Through his studies of groups of bathers outdoors, Paul Cezanne reconceived a classical subject in a modern, pictorial idiom. Though clearly related, The Bathers is not a study for either of the monumental canvases of bather subjects that the artist left unfinished at his death; rather, it is an independent, exploratory work painted with a more spritely touch. For all its compositional complexity, it retains the lightness of a watercolor, with thin parallel strokes and dashes and areas of white-primed canvas showing through the paint.