Art presentation

Today i'll speak about an art work of Paul Cézanne : The Bather

It's an oil on cavenas painting painted in 1885.

First this painting appears tu be very soft, it really can describe like a picture because oil on cavenas don't create so much texture.

This painting represent a man, only with a white underpants. He maybe goes to swim in a river or a lake. Globally the colour of this painting is a mix of a grey and a light blue. Only one part of a vegetation in bottom right corner is green. The back ground appears cold, because of the colours. The artist use cold colour like blue.

The bather is looking at his feet something we can not see. The direction is vertical because of the format of the painting and the man which is standing.

We can point the fact that, the area of vegetation painted in green is very small compared to the rest of the painting.

We can analyse all this things : The colour of the back ground, gives an unity to this painting and an harmony because the light blue-grey colour is a quite neutral colour. But the man is painting with light colour which contrast a bit with the back ground. In the same way, the little area of vegetation put some variety in this painting. It is quite balance between the man and the back ground but there is always this vegetation which touch our feeling, in a first way we do not understand but after have seen the other parts of the painting we can have an interpretation.

The man is looking down and we see that he is sad. He is not happy, he do not smile. The back ground is painting with cold colour. Maybe the water where he want to swim is cold too. But there is a little peace of vegetation which say the water is warm. I think this picture in a metaphor of what the man think. He knows he is going to a sad destination where he will not return, so he is not happy, and he only see bad side of this destination : all the background is painted with cold colour which are not happy. But secretly he have some hope or good idea of his destination : the small area of green vegetation represent it. The face of the man is not smiling so we can think that the vegetation represents his unconscious part of his mind.

Personally in a first approach this painting do not touch me. But it's only after view the all painting, you understand the feeling of this painting. I like this idea to externalize the man mind on his environment. It says that we can not dissociate the human to his environment. The perception is an important part of the life.