The Bather
An early manifestation of Benton’s emulation of sixteenth-century Italian painting, The Bather evokes the ignudi (male nudes) that populate Michelangelo’s fresco in the Vatican’s Sistine Chapel (1508–1512). In this nearly square composition, a muscular male nude leans forward, turning to his left while looking to the right. Cool, pale lavender and light green tones defining the surrounding natural setting offset the luminous warm palette used for the figure. The Bather suggests the genesis of what by the 1930s became Benton’s elongated, energetic signature style, as seen throughout his America Today mural, now in The Met’s collection.
The painting is a substantial fragment of a larger composition, which was damaged and cut down early in its history.
The painting is a substantial fragment of a larger composition, which was damaged and cut down early in its history.
Artwork Details
- Title: The Bather
- Artist: Thomas Hart Benton (American, Neosho, Missouri 1889–1975 Kansas City, Missouri)
- Date: 1917
- Medium: Oil on canvas
- Dimensions: 29 3/4 × 27 3/4 in. (75.6 × 70.5 cm)
- Classification: Paintings
- Credit Line: Anonymous Gift, 2021
- Object Number: 2021.384
- Curatorial Department: Modern and Contemporary Art
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Thomas Hart Benton
1944
Thomas Hart Benton
1943
Thomas Hart Benton
1934
Thomas Hart Benton
1939
Thomas Hart Benton
1937
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