Two Nudes in an Exotic Landscape

Baigneuses: Deux nus dans un paysage exotique (also called Bañistas: dos desnudos en un paisaje exótico and Bathers: Two Nudes in an Exotic Landscape) is an oil painting created circa 1905 by the French artist and theorist Jean Metzinger (1883–1956).

The work—consistent in style with other works by Metzinger created circa 1905–1906, such as Femme au Chapeau (Woman with a Hat)—represents two nude women, one seen from the rear and the other from a more frontal position, in a lush, tropical, or subtropical setting.

The landscape contains a wide variety of exotic geometrized elements (trees, bushes, flowers, a lake or river, a mountain range and a partly cloudy sky).

Unlike other Fauve works of the same period by Henri Matisse, André Derain, Maurice de Vlaminck or Kees van Dongen, Metzinger's composition is strongly Cézannian.

The vertical format and light colors of the sky and treatment of foreground and background elements create a flattening of spatial perspective, reminiscent of Georges Seurat, or Paul Cézanne's 'multiple viewpoints', his search for order, discipline and permanence.

Metzinger's unique style of Neo-Impressionism resulted from the unification of several influences in addition to that of Seurat and Cézanne; that of Vincent van Gogh, with his heavy impasto, dense brushstrokes; and—following posthumous retrospective exhibitions at the Salon d'Automne in 1903 and 1906—that of Paul Gauguin, with its exotic sumptuousness and sensuality.

I make a kind of chromatic versification and for syllables I use strokes which, variable in quantity, cannot differ in dimension without modifying the rhythm of a pictorial phraseology destined to translate the diverse emotions aroused by nature."

While on this occasion Metzinger did not exhibit with Matisse, Braque and Vlaminck, since 1904 he had shown alongside these artists who were gaining notoriety as Fauves, notably at the Salons des Indépendants.

In the departure from the Neo-Impressionist manner of Metzinger's early years, Baigneuses: Deux nus dans un paysage exotique substitutes the exuberant palette and broader handling of his peers.

Jean Metzinger, c.1906, Femme au Chapeau (Woman with a Hat) , oil on canvas, 44.8 x 36.8 cm, Korban Art Foundation
Paul Gauguin , 1892, Tahitiennes sur la plage , oil on canvas, 109.9 cm × 89.5 cm (43.3 in × 35.2 in), Metropolitan Museum of Art , New York
Henri Rousseau , c. 1905-07, Eve and the Serpent , oil on canvas, 61 x 46 cm, Kunsthalle Hamburg , Germany. Delaunay met Rousseau in 1906, and it is likely that Metzinger met Rousseau around the same time. [ 3 ]
Henri-Edmond Cross, c. 1906, La fuite des nymphes , oil on canvas, 71 x 92 cm, Musée d'Orsay