HISTORY OF PAINTING

ROCKET BYZANTINE RENAISSANCE BAROQUE NEOCLASSIC ROMANTIC REALIST IMPRESSIONIST PAUL CEZANNE
The first beings holy or other cultural period AL
politician who and objects such as reaction against representation
humans painted sacred character. Renaissance. Are called in emerged act or appear academic art. He naturalist, the
in the caves of For believers, cities were occasions style in the UK and in daily life. motion personal expression
Chauvet in these objects product of rococo. related germany This trend has impressionist and the pictorial
Ardeche, in the help establish period of great Neoclassicism, from the 18th existed consider the point order
southeast of France, contact with the expansion artistic style that century as periodically to starting point of art abstract.
a series of figure that economic and it developed reaction through history contemporary. By
animals. Are represent. demographic of the especially in the revolutionary in all arts; extension, the
paintings The Renaissance 12th and 13th architecture and against him However the term is also
they have one Italian was about centuries. decorative arts; rationalism of the term is restricted applied to a
age of some a whole Dominant style in flourished in Europe Illustration and the usually at certain style
32,000 years. phenomenon art and and neoclassicism. movement that musical of
Byzantine art urban, a product architecture USA Has as started to beginning of the
transmits the of the cities that western approximately search the midcentury century
spiritual values they flourished in approximately since 1750 freedom. XIX, after XX.
of the church the since the year 1600 until the beginning Art and in literature, revolutions of Paul Cézanne (1839-
orthodox. One of center and north of until 1750. Their of represents the 1848. 1906), painter
their Italy, like characteristics 1800 and was attempt Impressionism French,
demonstrations Florence, Ferrara, they lasted inspired by for describing the (art), movement considered the
more interesting Milan and Venice, throughout the first the forms behavior french pictorial father of art
They are the icons, whose wealth half of the 18th Greco-Roman. human and his late nineteenth modern. Tried
representations financed the century, Cultural movement, environment, or century Get one
pictorial of a achievements although well said autistic, literary and represent figures which appeared as ideal synthesis of
Throughout history, painting has taken different
forms, depending on the different media and
techniques used. Until the 20th century, it has been
supported, almost invariably, by the art of drawing.
In the West, fresco painting, which reached its
highest level of development at the end of the
Middle Ages and during the Renaissance, is based
on the application of paint on fresh or dry plaster.
Another ancient variety is tempera painting,
which involves applying powdered pigments
mixed with egg yolk on a prepared surface, which
is usually a canvas on board. During the
Renaissance, oil painting came to take the place
of fresco and tempera; Traditionally it was
thought that this technique had been developed
at the end of the Middle Ages by the Flemish
brothers Jan van Eyck and Hubert van Eyck, but
it is currently believed that it was invented much
earlier.
 Over the centuries, there have been
In the Renaissance, fresco painting on walls and
ceilings gave way to oil easel painting, but it became
relevant again in the 20th century with the works of
Mexican muralists.

Other painting techniques are enamel, encaustic,

gouache, grisaille and watercolor. In recent years, the
use of acrylic paints, water-based, quick-drying and
that do not darken over time, has become Diego Rivera
widespread.
different artistic methods and styles occur, as well as
theories related to the purpose of art to, in some
cases, reappear in later times with some modification.
The need to express intense emotion through art unites painters as different as the Spanish El
Greco, from the 16th century, and the German expressionists of the 20th century. At the opposite
pole of the expressionists' attempts to reveal inner reality, there have always been painters
determined to accurately represent external aspects.

Realism and symbolism, classical restraint and romantic

passion, have alternated throughout the history of painting,
revealing significant affinities and influences.
 7

The paintings preserved in the caves of Spain

(Altamira) and southern France represent, with
incredible accuracy, bison, horses and deer.
These representations are made with pigments
extracted from the earth, composed of different
minerals pulverized and mixed with animal fat,
egg white, plant extracts, isinglass and even
blood; They were applied with brushes made of
wands and reeds or blown onto the wall.
These paintings must have played a role in magical rituals, although their exact nature is not known
with certainty. For example, in a cave painting from Lascaux, France, a man appears among the
animals next to several dark spots; Although its exact meaning remains unknown, it demonstrates the
presence of a spiritual consciousness and the ability to express it through images, signs and symbols.
 Cave Painting

Altamira Cave

The bison that can be seen in the image are just a small sample of the set of prehistoric paintings that the Altamira cave
houses. Dating back to more than 15,000 years ago, its animalistic representations, executed with a skillful naturalistic
style that dominated the lines and the use of colors, motivated this Cantabrian cave, located in the municipality of
Santillana del Mar, to receive the nickname ' Sistine Chapel of Paleolithic art'.
Cave painting, Lascaux
Prehistoric cave paintings at Lascaux, France, date to approximately 13,000 BC and were
made with pigments (red and ocher) blown through hollow bones on the rock, or applied
with reeds or crushed branches after mixing them with animal fat.
Byzantine artists learned again, studying
classical antecedents, the representation of
figures dressed in the style of wet cloths or
folds. They also attempted to suggest the
valorization of light and shadow that creates the
illusion of three-dimensional space and gives life
to the painted surface. However, religious
images were only accepted if the human figure
was not represented as a tangible physical
presence. Walls of Byzantium

The city of Byzantium was founded in the European

continental area of the Bosphorus Strait, around 660 BC,
as a Greek colony. Centuries later, it came under the
control of the Roman Empire. In 326 AD, Constantine
I the Great began the
reconstruction of the city, inaugurated in 330 with the
name of Constantinople in honor of its founder. As the
capital of the Byzantine Empire from 395 to the mid-
15th century, Constantinople was one of the largest and
richest cities in Christendom during the Middle Ages.
 Monreale apse mosaic Christian mural in Ukraine
The figure of Christ as Pantocrator, surrounded by the architecture. The cathedral was renovated in the 18th
Virgin, angels and saints, occupies the apse of the church of century when some murals, including this one, were added.
Monreale in Sicily (end of the 12th century). The mosaic
was a demonstration of King Roger's attempt to import the
glory of Byzantium to Sicily as a symbol of his power.
The Saint Sophia Cathedral in Kiev (11th century) is one of
the most beautiful examples of Russian Byzantine religious
Old Testament (c. 1410), made by the
Russian artist Andrei Rublev, constitutes an example of
Byzantine icon painting of the 15th century. It
represents the three angels who appear to Abraham near
the oaks of Mambré (Gen. 18, 2-15). His style of strong
linearity, flat space and intense colors typifies the style
of icon painting.
The Renaissance is a period in European history characterized by renewed interest in the
classical Greco-Roman past and especially in its art.
The Renaissance began in Italy in the 14th
century and spread throughout the rest of Europe
during the 15th and 16th centuries. In this period, the
fragmentary feudal society of the Middle Ages,
characterized by a
basically agricultural economy and a cultural and
intellectual life dominated by the Church, was
transformed into a society progressively
dominated by centralized political institutions, with an
urban and mercantile economy, in which the Verrochi Piero de ls Francesca
patronage of education, the arts and culture o
developed. music.

Friar
Angelico
Perugino
 Renaissance Painting
Verrocchio ran an important workshop where he facet. with a wide variety of

Donatello (1386-1466) works all kinds of

received materials,
ages with which
and attitudes he represents
(children, youngthepeople,
human elderly).
figure
different commissions for sculpture, painting or He masters anatomy perfectly. Among his works,
goldsmithing. His pictorial works are logically David stands out, in bronze, represented as a naked
influenced by sculpture, which was his most developed young man after
to defeat the giant Goliath.
 The Italian territorial expansion through military conquest. Its
Renaissance was merchants controlled European trade and finance;
above all an urban This fluid mercantile society contrasted clearly with
phenomenon, a the rural society of medieval Europe. It was a less
product of the cities hierarchical society and more concerned with its
that flourished in secular objectives.
central and
northern Italy, such
as Florence,
Ferrara, Milan and
Venice, whose
wealth financed the
achievements
Renaissance
cultural.
These same cities
were not a product
of the Renaissance,
but of the period of great economic and
demographic expansion of the 12th and 13th
centuries. Medieval Italian merchants developed
commercial and financial techniques such as
accounting or bills of exchange.
The creation of public debt (a concept unknown in
past times) allowed these cities to finance their
 Florence Cathedral

The birth of Venus

Lorenzo de Medici commissioned this painting known

as The Birth of Venus from Sandro Botticelli in 1482.
The image combines astrological themes and classical
mythology with certain Christian elements. Its linear and
aerial style helps to achieve the delicate and subtle effect
of the composition.
Brunelleschi's crowning work was the design and
construction of the dome of the Florence Cathedral
(1420-1436). Its beautiful proportions and innovative
structural system are inspired by the architecture of
ancient Rome. It is one of the unavoidable images of the
Italian Renaissance.
 The masters of the High Renaissance were Leonardo
da Vinci, Raphael, Michelangelo and Titian.
Paradoxically, Leonardo only left a handful of works, as
he dedicated most of his time to scientific observation
of phenomena and technical inventions. He carried out
continuous experiments with oil pigments on dry
plaster, and this is the reason for the deterioration of
the murals that have survived to this day, such as The
Last Supper (1495-1497, Santa Maria delle Grazie,
Milan).

Mona Lisa The most widespread theory states that La Mona

Lisa (1503-1506), by Leonardo da Vinci, is the portrait of
Mona Lisa, the wife of the Italian banker Francesco del
Giocondo.
 The Last Supper , by Leonardo da Vinci

The Last Supper (c. 1495-1497), in the church of Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan, is one of Leonardo da Vinci's most
famous religious paintings. The work suffered serious deterioration due to the poor fixation of the mixture of oil and
tempera paint used by the artist.
The Virgin of the rocks

There are two versions of the Virgin of the Rocks , one of the most important paintings
that Leonardo da Vinci made during his stay in Milan. The first version, from 1485,
is in the Louvre, Paris. The second, from 1505, is the one we reproduce here and is in
the National Gallery in London.
 Renaissance Painting

School of Athens

Raphael perfected earlier Renaissance discoveries in

color and composition, creating ideal types in his
representations of the Virgin and Child and in his
studies of portraits of his contemporaries.
 w -
F
Renaissance Painting

The Sistine Chapel of the Vatican, in Rome, with its

frescoes of the creation and expulsion of Adam and
Eve from Paradise in the vault (1508-1512) and the
great mural of the Last Judgment (1536-1541), attest to
the pictorial genius by Michelangelo.
Final judgment
Michelangelo painted the Last Judgment (1536-
1541) on the altar wall of the Sistine Chapel 20
years after the ceiling frescoes. In this
apocalyptic vision of Judgment Day, Christ
appears flanked by the saved souls, ascending on
his right, and the damned, descending on his left.
 The Virgin and Child with Chancellor Rolin

Isabel d'Este
A colorful style of painting reached
its climax in Venice with the works
of Titian, whose portraits denote a
deep knowledge of human nature.
His masterpieces also include
representations of Christian and
mythological themes, as well as
numerous female nudes, famous in
their genre.
The meticulousness in detail, the naturalistic style,
the textures of the draperies and the interest in
spatial three-dimensionality, evident in the works of
Jan van Eyck, herald the beginning of Renaissance
painting in northern Europe. The Virgin and Child
with Chancellor Rolin (1433) shows the Virgin with
Nicholas Rolin, chancellor to Philip the Good, Duke
of Burgundy.
The baroque art of the 17th century
is characterized by its dynamic
appearance, in contrast to the
classical style,
relatively
static, of the
Renaissance. This trend is distinguished by the
diagonal compositional lines, which provide the
sense of movement, and by the use of marked
chiaroscuro. With both techniques, a dramatic,
grandiose style was achieved, appropriate to the
fundamental spirit of the Counter-Reformation.

Christ on the
cross
 Baroque
Painting

Many painters of the

early 17th century
also began to
deviate from the
artificiality of
Mannerism in an
attempt to return to a
more accurate reflection of the natural world.
 Baroque
Painting

Las Meninas

Las Meninas (1656) is a complex painting.

It is considered Velázquez's masterpiece.
The figure in the center is the Infanta
Margarita Teresa, daughter of King Felipe
IV, flanked by two ladies-in-waiting
(meninas). To the left of the painting is
Velázquez himself in front of a huge
canvas, on which he may be painting the
king and queen, who appear reflected in the
mirror in the background and who therefore
occupied the place where the viewer of the
painting. The figure descending the
staircase at the opposite end of the room
serves to accentuate the horizontal plane.
The milkmaid

Like many paintings

of 17th-century Dutch
domestic interiors,
The Milkmaid (c.
1659-1660) presents
symbolic elements.
Here the whiteness of
the milk alludes to the
purity and virtues of
the young woman.
Jan Vermeer used a
camera obscura to
capture the effects of
light, which he would
later capture with
great mastery in his
work.
 Neoclassical
Painting
In the second half of the 18th century, painting experienced a
revolution, when sober neoclassicism replaced the exuberant
Rococo style. This classical revival in the arts was due to
different events. First, in the mid-18th century, many
archaeological excavations began in Italy and Greece, and
books were published with drawings of ancient buildings that
English and French architects avidly copied.
The neoclassicist sculptor Antonio Canova enjoyed great popularity in
the late 18th and early 19th centuries, partly thanks to the patronage of
Napoleon Bonaparte. Her sensuality can be seen in this demure statue
of Venus.

Venus , by Antonio
Canova
 Neoclassical
Painting
Napoleon crossing the Alps

There are five versions of this oil on canvas

painted by the same artist, Jacques-Louis
David, between 1801 and 1805. This version
is in Charlottenburg Palace, Berlin. David
was a neoclassical painter, who illustrated
the main events of the French Revolution
and later became official painter to
Napoleon Bonaparte's empire.

In the year 1800, Napoleon, who had come

to power after the coup d'état of Brumaire 18
(November 9) 1799, decided to march to
Italy in command of an army to help the
French troops facing the Austrians. To
surprise them, cross the Alps through the
San Bernardo Pass. Victory in Italy
consolidates Napoleon's power in France
and French dominance in Europe
 Neoclassical
Secondly, in 1755, the
Painting
German art historian
Johann Joachim Winckelmann published his
essay (Reflections on the Imitation of Greek
Works in Painting and Sculpture), praising Greek
sculpture. This work, which had a great influence
on artists, especially impressed four foreign
painters living in Rome: the Scotsman Gavin
Hamilton, the German Anton Raphael Mengs, the
Swiss Angelika Kauffmann and the American
Benjamin West, who were inspired by it to create
paintings based on classical literature.
Angelika Kauffmann painted this Self-Portrait at the
end of the 18th century. The British artist, who began
her career in Rococo as a disciple of Joshua Reynolds,
later evolved towards neoclassicist painting.

Kauffmann Self-Portrait
Neoclassical
Painting

It was, however,
the French
painter
Jacques-Louis
David who was
the main
defender of
neoclassicism.
David's sober
style
harmonized
with the ideals
of the French
Revolution.
Works such as
Oath of the
Horatii (1784-
1785, Louvre) inspired patriotism; others, such as
the Death of Socrates (1787,Metropolitan Art
Neoclassical
Painting

Museum),
They preached stoicism and self-denial. David not
only used ancient history and classical myth as
sources for his themes, but he based the form of his
figures on ancient sculpture.

The Oath of the Horatii (1784-1785) by Jacques-Louis

David
 Neoclassical
Painting

His great successor was Jean Auguste Dominique

Ingres , who came to be identified with the academic
tradition in France for the cold serenity of his lines and
tones, and for his painstaking interest in detail, as in his
surprising portrait of The Countess of Haussonville.
(1845, Frick Collection, New York). However, elements
of the romantic tendency, which would soon succeed
neoclassicism, can already be found in the interest that
Ingres showed in non-European themes, as
demonstrated by his different odalisque paintings.

This pencil portrait of the Italian composer

and violinist Niccolò Paganini was made by
Jean-Auguste Dominique Ingres in 1819.
 Neoclassical
Painting

Odalisque (1814) by Jean Ingres is a neoclassical work in

which the influence of classical antiquity and the characteristic
features of his painting can be seen: sensuality, soft contours
and sinuous lines. Bridgeman Art Library, London/New
York/Giraudon
Following closely after neoclassicism, the
Romantic movement introduced a taste for the
medieval and the mysterious, as well as the
love for the picturesque and the sublime of
nature. Individual imagination and the
expression of emotion and mood were given
free rein, displacing the reasoned intellectual
approach of the neoclassicists. In general,
romantic painters preferred colorist and
painterly techniques to the neoclassical, linear
and cold style.

This version of The Burning of Parliament (1834) by Josep

Mallord William Turner is probably a study, but it reflects
the British painter's characteristic watercolor style. Turner's
work borders on the abstract, which is why he is considered
one of the pioneers of the artistic avant-garde of the 20th
century.
Freedom guiding the people

Eugène Delacroix painted Liberty

Leading the People in 1830, one of the
culminating works of Romanticism. The
French government commissioned this
2.59 x 3.25 m canvas, but later considered
it too revolutionary and banned its
exhibition.
 Romantic Painting

The Raft of the Medusa

Théodore Géricault 's large work The Raft of Medusa (1818-1819, Louvre, Paris) is based on the tragedy of the
castaways of the French frigate Medusa, sunk off West Africa, who spent several weeks on a raft. Géricault
investigated the facts in depth and captured them in great detail in this work that caused a great scandal in its time.
 In 1795, Constable met George Beaumont, who showed
him a landscape from his collection painted by Claudius
of Lorraine, sparking an early interest in art. Constable
began to study art theory and in 1799 persuaded his
father to allow him to study painting in London with
Joseph Faringdon at the Royal Academy Schools.

John Constable (1776-1837), English painter. His

works, drawn directly from nature, influenced the
French painters of the Barbizon School and the
Impressionist movement.
Towards the middle of the 19th century, the French
painter Gustave Courbet rejected both neoclassicism
and romanticism and proclaimed an individual
movement called realism. He was not interested in
historical painting, nor in portraits of rulers, nor in exotic
themes, as he believed that the artist should be
realistic and paint the daily events of common people.
The environment chosen for many of his canvases was
Ornans, his native town in the French east; There he
portrayed workers building a road, citizens attending a
funeral, or men sitting around the table listening to
music and smoking.
The fruit of the friendship and admiration that united the
painter Gustave Courbet and the thinker Pierre Joseph
Proudhon is this intense portrait, painted in a reduced range of
colors that highlights the serious expression of the father of
modern anarchism. Portrait of Proudhon
 Realistic
Painting
Although there was
no formal realist
artistic movement,
the work of some
19th century
painters presents
trends that could be
identified as such.
Honoré Daumier ,
best known for his

lithographs, painted
small realistic
 Realistic
Painting
canvases about life on the streets of Paris, and
in some cases Jean-François Millet of the
Barbizon School is called a social realist.
The pleasures of those who visit the Honoré
Daumier countryside
 Realistic
Painting
Jean-François Millet (1814-1875), French genre painter and
landscape painter, born in Gruchy. He began his painting
studies in Cherbourg and later, in 1837, he studied in Paris
with the French painter Paul Delaroche. After residing
twelve years in Paris and Normandy, Millet joined the
Barbizon School of landscape artists. There he painted some
of his most famous works of peasants working in the fields,
including The Gleaners (1857, Louvre Museum, Paris) and
The Angelus (1857-1859, Musée d'Orsay, Paris), as well as
The Sower (1850) and The Potato Planters (1862), both in the
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Although Millet did not intend
to express a social protest through his work, the themes on
which he focused his work inevitably provoked such an
interpretation.
 Impressive paint

Impressionism in painting arose from

disagreement with
classical themes and the
constricted artistic
formulas advocated by
the French Academy of
Fine Arts. The Academy
set the models to follow
and sponsored the
official exhibitions of the
Paris Salon. The
Impressionists, on the
 Impressive paint

other hand, chose plein air painting and themes

from everyday life. Their first objective was to
achieve a spontaneous and direct representation
of the world, and to do so they focused on the
effects that natural light produces on objects .
By turning their eyes to everyday subjects,
artists of the mid-19th century set a precedent
for the next generation of the French avant-
garde. Édouard Manet was the leading
innovator of the 1860s and his style was a
precursor to Impressionism. Manet found many
of his themes in the life around him (Parisians
relaxing in restaurants, in parks, or boat trips),
although he also borrowed some from earlier
masters—Velázquez and Goya—recreating
them in accordance with contemporary life, at
his own pace. style, flattening the figures and
neutralizing emotional expressions.
 Impressive paint

These and other

innovations, such as
his free, imprecise
brushwork and his
broad patches of color
juxtaposed without
transition, lead Manet
to be considered the
first modern painter.

The Impressionist style developed as painters grew

interested in
studying the
effects of light on
objects—how
light colors
shadows and
dissolves the
contours of
objects—and in
translating their
 Impressive paint

observations directly to canvas. His lack of interest in

the concrete details of forms and his use of small,
separate touches of pure color—techniques that
completely contrasted with the predominant
academic style—caused animosity from critics and
the public.
8Impressive paint
The
picnic

The picnic
caused a
great
scandal
when it
was
exhibited
in 1863.
Folies-Bergere Bar. 1882
 Impressive paint

The public not only criticized the freedom of the brush strokes and the vagueness of the chromatic areas, but also
considered the female nude, which was neither an allegorical figure nor a classical goddess, to be in bad taste. Manet
declared that the true theme of the painting was light and that was the idea that gave rise to Impressionism.
 Haystacks, end of summer, morning

The French painter Claude Monet made a series of paintings

designed to show the effect of atmospheric variations on a certain
motif or landscape. The result of this research is Haystacks, End
of Summer, in the Morning (1891), a paradigmatic painting of the
aspirations of the Impressionist movement.
End of Arabesque
Settings such as horse races, cafes, theater and ballet are characteristic of Degas ' work. In Fin d'arabesque (1877, Musée
d'Orsay, Paris), his mastery of expressing movement is appreciated.
View of Pontoise

The main theme of View of Pontoise (1879) by Camille Pissarro is light. It is an impressionist work although its
technique is close to pointillism.
 Impressive paint
La Goulue entering the Moulin Rouge

La Goulue, dancer at the Moulin Rouge, was the main subject of

many drawings and lithographs by Toulouse-Lautrec. In this

work the use of flat spaces and colors, as well as simple and
undulating strokes, denotes the influence of Japanese
engravings.
 Impressive paint

Vincent Van Gogh (1853-1890),

painter
Dutch post-impressionist.
He lived most of his life
in France and his work
decisively influenced the
expressionist movement.
From his youth he
demonstrated a strong
temperament and a
difficult character that
would frustrate every
endeavor he undertook.
At the age of 27 he had
already worked in an art gallery, had taught French, had been
a theology student and had been an evangelist among the
miners of Wasmes, in
Wheat field and cypress trees

During the period between 1888 and 1890 Van Gogh produced his
most famous works, mostly landscapes such as Field of Wheat and
Cypresses (1889). Registered in the post-impressionist movement, he
represented the visible world according to the impressionist
ideal although with a very personal calligraphy in which the undulating
strokes give a special dynamism to the forms. Van Gogh's pictorial style
later served as inspiration for Fauvism and the
Alfred Sisley (1839-1899), French landscape painter considered one of the founders of
Impressionism.
He was a disciple in the studio of the Swiss academic painter Charles Gabriel Gleyre,
where he met Claude Monet and Auguste Renoir. His work, in a calmer style than that
of his contemporaries, was exhibited for the first time along with that of the rest of the
Impressionists in 1874.
Auguste Renoir (1841-1919), French impressionist painter, famous for his brilliant and intimate paintings,
particularly those depicting female nudes. Considered one of the greatest independent artists of his time, he
is famous for the harmony of his lines, the brilliance of his color and the intimate charm of his very varied
pictorial themes. Unlike other impressionists, he was more interested in the representation of the individual
Painting
human figure or in group portraits by Paul Cézanne
than in landscapes.
Paul Cézanne (1839-1906),
French painter, considered the
father of modern art. He attempted
to achieve an ideal synthesis of
naturalistic representation,
personal expression and abstract
pictorial order.

Peaches and pears

Peaches and Pears (1888, Pushkin Museum, Moscow) by Paul Cézanne is one of his famous still lifes. In them
he departs from realistic painting and uses flat perspective and small areas of color that would later be
precursors of cubism at the beginning of the 20th century.
 Painting by Paul Cézanne

Among all the artists of his time, Cézanne

is perhaps the one who has exerted the
most profound influence on 20th century
art (Henri Matisse admired his use of color
and Pablo Picasso relied on his way of
composing planes to create the style
Cubist).

Mont Sainte-Victoire seen from the southwest

with trees and a house is one of the many works that Paul Cézanne created on this subject when his contact with
Impressionism led him to paint outdoors. The definition of the form through spaces and flat colors are
characteristic of his style.
Isolation and concentration, as well as the singularity of his
search, could be pointed out as responsible for the
incredible evolution that his style underwent during the
1880s and 1890s. In this period, although he continued to paint
directly from life with brilliant impressionistic coloring, he
gradually simplified the application of paint to the point that
he seemed to be able to express volume with only a few
juxtaposed brushstrokes of color.
Bathers (National
Gallery, London) is one of three
versions that Cézanne painted
on this theme between 1899 and
1906. It shows the progressive
abstraction of his work through
the use of geometric planes of
color.