The Impressionist painting depicts young men dressed in swimsuits having a leisurely day along the banks of the Lez river near Montpellier.

Like his earlier painting Réunion de famille (1867), Scène d'été captured friends and family members in the outdoors.

Bazille first conceived of Scène d'été in April, 1869, and he initially intended the work to depict nude figures, as revealed by his personal letters.

[4]: 143 In terms of technique, Bazille shies away from loose or spontaneous brushwork, rather opting to define the landscape through thin, detailed lines and shapes.

[8] As art historian François Daulte describes, Bazille, in Scène d'été, creates a harmony between the bodies, the trees, and the clouds, in some ways to evoke renaissance or even classical sentiments.

[9] Bazille further evokes renaissance art through the composition's symmetry, the square shape of the canvas, which was particularly unusual at the time, and through the boldness and vividness of the color palette.

The following are the various sketches that depict Bazille's planning for the figures and elements in Scène d'été, all of which currently reside at the Musée du Louvre, Paris.