Paul Cézanne's 'The Large Bathers' ('Les Grandes Baigneuses', 1900–1906), a 208 × 252 cm oil at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, is the culminating monument of his lifelong series of bathing subjects. Fourteen female nudes are arranged beneath a pyramidal arch of trees, bodies reduced to geometric colour-planes fused with the surrounding landscape. Its fusion of figure and setting, and its rupture with classical perspective, gave Picasso and Braque direct permission to invent Cubism a few years later.

Exhibition Venue

Philadelphia Museum of Art

Philadelphia, United States