Bathers Playing with a Crab
Medium
oil on fabric
Dimensions
unframed: 54.6 × 65.7 cm · framed: 75.5 × 85.5 × 10 cm
Classification
Painting
Department
Modern European Painting and Sculpture
Museum
Cleveland Museum of Art
Credit
Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund
Accession Number
1939.269
Rights
Public Domain
Tags
male
About this artwork
After viewing Renaissance paintings on a trip to Italy in 1881, Renoir attempted to bring greater order and stability to Impressionism by merging flickering light effects with solid forms. He conveyed this new ambition in a series of paintings of nude bathers, a subject that preoccupied him from 1883 until his death in 1919. Avant-garde artists of the 20th century admired his ability to blend modernist and classicizing tendencies.