A group of bathers fills a sunlit landscape in The Bathers, an oil on canvas painted by Roger de La Fresnaye in 1912. The composition is arranged with the figures placed in the foreground and middle ground, set against a simplified background of trees and sky. The artist uses broad, flat areas of color and clearly defined outlines, with a palette dominated by warm earth tones, greens, and blues.

The forms are stylized and geometric, characteristic of La Fresnaye’s engagement with Cubism during this period. A young man in red bathing trunks stands above the group, while the other figures sit and recline on the grass below him. The bodies are rendered with simplified, volumetric shapes, and the landscape is abstracted into blocks of color. Light is even and diffuse, with little modeling or cast shadow, emphasizing the decorative and structural qualities of the composition.

The painting’s technique combines a sense of monumentality with a deliberate flattening of space. The Bathers dates from a formative moment in La Fresnaye’s career, as he explored the possibilities of modernist form and color. The work reflects the influence of Cubism and the search for a new approach to the traditional theme of bathers in early twentieth-century French painting. It belongs to the National Gallery of Art in Washington.