More specifically, this celebration of women begins with the painting Luxury, Tranquility and Pleasure (1904) in which Matisse revises Three Bathers’ message while borrowing from its construction to create an image similar to Three Bathers in style but not in meaning. The painting is clearly of a happy scene in which women are interacting both with each other, nature, and the viewer 
Matisse, Henri. Luxury, Tranquility and Pleasure. 1904. Musée d’Orsay, Paris.
in a positive manner. Bright colors connote cheerfulness and dispel all possibilities of finding any “sobriety” in the painting, “extraordinary” or not. The women in the painting are relaxed and comfortable in their interactions with each other. The viewer, here, is not excluded from the painting as in Cézanne’s artwork and is therefore not detached from the women. This feeling is created by the unoccupied side of the picnic blanket that has a tea setting with no one to drink it. This teacup is for the viewer and is Matisse’s way of inviting the viewer to join in the women’s celebration of nature, life, and womanhood. Yet for all that the painting’s message is different from the message that Cézanne’s nymphs carried, elements of the composition that Matisse so admired in Cézanne’s art are still evident. Both paintings show the women enveloped by nature. In Cézanne’s Three Bathers, tree branches form an arc around them, and in Matisse’s Luxury, Tranquility, and Pleasure, the tree branch reaches out to the mast of the boat, forming a triangle over the four nudes in the foreground of the painting whose bodies also form a triangle, which is, again taken from the compositional style of Cézanne (Krumrine et al 137). Matisse has borrowed Cézanne’s structure and completely rewritten the message in order to glorify women.
Moreover, over the course of time, as Matisse revised Three Bathers more and more, he gradually moved away from the influence of Cézanne, making his artwork more individual. As he came closer to completing his correction of what he saw to be Cézanne’s error, he was able to abandon the compositional aspects of Cézanne’s work and become more of an artistic individual. It is as though he felt that as the wrong was righted he could let go of the guilt that he might otherwise have felt for letting an incorrect 
Matisse, Henri. Pastoral. 1905. Musée de la Ville de Paris, Paris.
message be perpetuated. As such, Matisse’s Pastoral (1905) departs from Cézanne’s bather paintings in that it depicts both males and females together. Even though the male figure is a child and is situated at on the edge of the scene, this is an important detail. Matisse was showing that both sexes can, in fact, interact without the threat of violence, rape, or seduction. His painting is clearly non-sexual and provides no potential for violence. The elements here that Matisse took from Cézanne are less specific than in Luxury, Tranquility and Pleasure. Instead, Matisse uses large brushstrokes and leaves parts of the canvas uncovered as Cézanne often does, but this aspect is much less specific to the bather paintings and almost entirely unconnected from the messages encoded in paintings such as Three Bathers. The women are still positioned in a triangle yet they are not enshrouded by nature as are the other women and the young boy distorts the triangle, showing its gradual disintegration. This shift away from copying the composition of Three Bathers is a reflection of how by 1905, Matisse had made progress in his quest to create a positive image of women that celebrates their femininity and allows them to coexist in harmony with both men and nature.
(Left) Matisse, Henri. Luxury I. 1907. Musée National d’Art Moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris.
(Right) Matisse, Henri. Luxury II. 1908. Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen.
Luxury I (1907) and Luxury II (1908) further celebrate women and life in their revisions of Cézanne’s negative portrayals of women. In both paintings, the women are no longer protected or hidden by the surrounding natural environment. These women are independent yet unthreatening. They no longer need to be protected by trees nor do the trees need to protect the world from them. The woman in the back is offering flowers to someone but not to either of the other women in the painting. The flowers are a gift for the viewer, a sort of peace offering. Luxury I and Luxury II are two versions of the same scene and thus only differ stylistically. They both reject the composition of Matisse even further by the fact that they no longer make use of the triangular formation. The major constructional similarity that these two paintings have to Three Bathers is their flatly two-dimensional appearance where the women appear artificial both on their own and in relation to the background (Krumrine et al 16). While Luxury I uses unfinished brushstrokes much like Cézanne, Luxury II is painted in a style belonging more to Matisse, which is an almost complete departure from Cézanne. In the one year between Luxury I and Luxury II, Matisse dramatically develops his own personal style of painting.