BAZILLE, Jean-Frédéric

In the summer of 1869 at M�ric, Bazille had painted one of his most striking works, one that gained acceptance by the 1870 Salon. The Bathers shows a number of youths in a grove of birches, fooling about and bathing in a pool. There is an occasional clumsiness in the rendering of the bodies, the foreshortening of perspective, and the painting of the water. The lighting of the figures is uneven, and they do not seem to be lit by the same sources as the setting. But what is arresting in this picture by a man still in his twenties is its view of life and of man, and its determination to rediscover the figurative values of the old masters in modern everyday life. The man leaning against the tree at left resembles a St Sebastian, the reclining youth an ancient river deity, and the helpfulness of the man at right may recall Christ helping the damned up out of purgatory.

This is perhaps the most famous painting by Bazille. It depicts a family in the shade on a terrace at M�ric, near Montpellier in the south of France. The painting was accepted at the 1868 Salon. The picture, showing Bazille’s parents and relations, conveys a sense of family and of social status, a particular lifestyle, and a fresh response to Nature and light; in painting it, Bazille was also out to convince his family of his ability as an artist.

This painting combines a portrait-like depiction of Bazille’s cousin, Th�r�se des Hours, who is seen from behind and the sunlit landscape at which she gazes.

Bazille was combining a new approach to figural work with energetic attention to colour values in the open. On two occasions, four years apart (in 1864 and 1868), he tackled open-air portraiture, doing a young woman dressed in light colours, with a view of the village of Castelnau-le-Lez rising upon a gentle slope in the background. The 1868 painting was exhibited at the Salon the following year.

Renoir and Bazille met in November 1862 in the studio of Charles Gleyre, where they attended drawing classes along with Monet and Sisley. The four pupils quickly became friends and left Gleyre in the spring of 1863 in order to devote themselves entirely to open-air painting. The next summer Bazille moved into a studio in Paris and shared it with Renoir. Toward the end of 1867, Bazille painted his friend in a nonchalant attitude with his feet up on the seat of his chair. The painting remained in Renoir’s possession for the rest of his life.

Renoir reciprocated by painting a picture of his friend in their studio. Bazille is at his easel, leaning forward slightly with his legs crossed, working on a still-life of dead birds. On the wall behind him is a winter landscape by Claude Monet with a view of Honfleur. The predominant colours in the picture are gray and beige.

Despite their differences, one factor is common in these paintings: they depict what appears to be a random moment in everyday life and avoid any semblance of a posed composition.

In this painting the artist set out to paint his studio in the Rue de la Condamine in which he had been working since January 1, 1868. Certain detail are shown very precisely, among them the paintings stacked against or hung on the walls (some of which are his own and others are by his friends Monet and Renoir, who were sharing his studio at the time). Prominent among the paintings is a large composition in the style of Courbet, high on the wall above the sofa, a landscape with two figures, one nude, the other clothed. This may be the Renoir that was rejected by the 1866 Salon.

The tall figure of Bazille, leaning on the easel that bears his View of the Village (Mus�e Fabre, Montpellier), was apparently painted by Manet, who is the one wearing a hat, shown giving his young friend some advice.

Bazille was combining a new approach to figural work with energetic attention to colour values in the open. On two occasions, four years apart (in 1864 and 1868), he tackled open-air portraiture, doing a young woman dressed in light colours, with a view of the village of Castelnau-le-Lez rising upon a gentle slope in the background. The 1868 painting was exhibited at the Salon the following year.