Frederic Bazille (1841-1870)

Frederic Bazille was born in 1841 into a wealthy and cultured family living in Montpellier in the south of France. At the Montpellier home of the art collector Alfred Bruyas, his boyish imagination was excited by two paintings by Eugene Delacroix, namely Woman of Algiers and Daniel in the Lions' Den. When Bazille was 18 he obtained his parent's permission to study painting, but only on the condition that he read medicine at the same time.

In 1859, he began to study medicine in Montpellier and, in 1862, continued his medical studies in Paris, at the same time attending painting classes at Atelier Gleyre. Here he befriended Monet,whom he later supported financially, as well as Renoir and Sisley. The four young men soon became friends an formed a group independent of the other students. With Monet, Bazille would watch, from a window, the aged Delacroix at work in his garden studio. Like Monet he was also an admirer of Edouard Manet. During Easter, 1863, all four friends made outdoor studies in the Forest of Fontainebleau.

Bazille spent the summer of 1864, while waiting for the result of an examination in medicine, at Honfleur on the Seine estuary with Monet. There he met two marine painters, Monet's friends Eugene Boudin and Johan Barthold Jongkind. In Paris again in the autumn he found that he had failed his examination. At last his parents permitted him to study painting full time. He was just 23 years old when he painted several famous works, of which the best known painting is a Family Reunion (1867-1868) which is especially of interest for its exploration of the effects of light on flesh tones.

In the Forest of Fontainebleau in 1865, when Monet was in bed for some days with an injured leg, Bazille painted Monet, after his accident, at the Inn in Chailly. During the following year he was working on two canvasses which he submitted to the Paris Salon, Young Girl at the Piano and Still-life of Fish. As he had feared, only the still-life was accepted.

Although Bazille was strongly influenced by his friendships with the impressionists, he remained notably faithful to the more traditional styles and subjects of painting, favouring portraits and figure painting over landscapes.

His themes were monumental and dramatic, and he applied that monumental approach to both modern and conventional themes. His brushstroke was free and powerful; under the influence of Manet he modeled his figures with great vigor and boldness.

Since 1866, Bazille exhibited at the Salon; he painted numerous portraits of friends and members of his family in the various studios. In 1869, his picture Fisherman with a Net caused a fierce debate.

His quiet clear landscapes and harmonious family scenes in muted colors made him one of the most significant representatives of Early Impressionism.

Financially more secure than most of his friends, Bazille often gave them material help. After Gleyre's studio closed down at the end of 1864, he shared his Paris studio with Monet in 1865 and, when Monet was in difficulties, arranged to buy in installments his enormous Women in the Garden. Renoir also stayed for some time at Bazille's next studio, in the Batignolles district of Paris. This spacious room was the setting of Bazille's The Artist's Studio in the Rue de La Condamine, in 1870, which incorporated portraits of Renoir, Manet, Monet, and the writer Emile Zola. Camille Pissarro, Paul Cezanne, and sometimes Courbet, were also visitors at his successive studios. He in turn was often present at the gatherings of the avant garde in the Cafe Guerbois. He was one of the few people capable of indulging in verbal duels with the erudite and sarcastic Edgar Degas, displaying a clarity of mind and matter-of-factness that were reflected in his work.

Frédéric Bazille died in 1870, aged 29, cutting short a very promising career. He was killed in action during the Franco-Prussian War, before Impressionism had fully developed.

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