Focus on Scène d'été and explain the Background.
After his painting Le Pêcheur à L'épervier (1868) was rejected from the Salon, Bazille was spurred to paint a larger and more ambitious work, including not two, but eight figures set in nature. He sought to create a more developed and mature painting in the same style and evoking similar sentiments. 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. He also planned for the work to be the crowning achievement of his exploration of figures set in an open-air ('plein-air') setting.: 41  The subject of bathing, then, provided Bazille with the ability to combine his studies of the nude with this desire to explore plein-air painting.: 138 
The work is the result of long and arduous planning by Bazille, as demonstrated by the numerous sketches and drawings that depict Bazille's original plans for the painting. In addition to the many rough sketches, Bazille created his only known drawing of an entire composition. Rather than the eight figures depicted in Scène d'été, the compositional drawing consists only of seven, with four of them—the young man reclining, the figure in the front-left, and the two wrestlers in the background—placed in the same location as in the final painting. Additionally, the wrestling figures in the center of the canvas are locked together more rigorously in the painting than in the drawing, while the boy in the water below is more-or-less floating with his head briefly turned to the left, unlike in the drawing, where the boy adopts a more natural swimming pose. The sketches found in Bazille's sketchbook depict variations of the figures found in the drawing and final painting, demonstrating how Bazille meticulously planned the poses of each figure. The two wrestling figures are drawn multiple times in various interlocking grips, and another of these sketches shows a seated figure with his back turned to the spectator, likely revealing another figure Bazille refrained from including in the final work.
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