Les Baigneuses-as Robert Delaunay's 1912 City of Paris, and to some extent Jean Metzinger's 1913 Meudon Landscape-juxtaposes sharply contrasting elements.
The background forms a semi-urban landscape that possesses both rural and semi-industrial components, consistent with Courbevoie of the 1910s (except perhaps for the rock-like outcrops), a village or town with delicate smokestacks or factory chimneys billowing smoke that blends into the cloudy sky.