The bathers Jean Honore Fragonard (1732-1806)

Description of Jean Honoré Fragonard’s "Bathers"

French artist Jean Honoré Fragonard was known for his Rococo and Neoclassical paintings. Frequent heroes of his paintings are almost heavenly romantic couples, playing characters whose dresses fly around the painting and give the impression of airy and multicolored clouds.

The painting The Bathers, which was created between 1772 and 1775, was no exception. The images of the beauties conceal lightness and a certain eroticism, giving the picture a musical poetry. The heavenly creatures are depicted almost naked, with the sun’s rays falling on them, which turn the general background into a golden color, which gives the canvas a certain royalty. The bathers’ nudity is modestly covered by the water, the coastal grasses and the foliage of the trees. You can read the dynamism in every movement Fragonard shows us: the trees leaning in the wind, the grass lying flat, the materials flying about - they appear to be the swimmers’ dresses - and the clouds gathering in a crowd, telling us that bad weather is coming.

Fragonard’s gallant and erotic motifs are well illustrated in the painting in question. He draws the shapes of the girls with broad strokes, trees and grass were created with sharp brush strokes and strokes. At the same time pure color is well combined with the mixed palette, in which there is a black, almost night light and nacreous - white shades, giving the impression of not yet completed day.

The bathers combine material beauty and theatrical spectacle, which gives the whole composition an easy perception.