Jean Frédéric Bazille (; December 6, 1841 – November 28, 1870) was a French Impressionist painter. Many of Bazille's major works are examples of figure painting in which he placed the subject figure within a landscape painted en plein air.

Life and work

Frédéric Bazille was born in Montpellier, Hérault, Languedoc-Roussillon, France, into a wealthy wine merchant Protestant family. Bazille grew up in the Le Domaine de Méric, a wine-producing estate in Castelnau-le-Lez, near Montpellier, owned by his family. He became interested in painting after seeing some works of Eugène Delacroix. His family agreed to let him study painting, but only if he also studied medicine.

Bazille began studying medicine in 1859, and moved to Paris in 1862 to continue his studies. There he met Pierre-Auguste Renoir and Alfred Sisley, was drawn to Impressionist painting, and began taking classes in Charles Gleyre's studio. After failing his medical exam in 1864, he began painting full-time. His close friends included Claude Monet, Alfred Sisley and Édouard Manet. Bazille was generous with his wealth and helped support his less fortunate associates by giving them space in his studio and materials to use.

Bazille was just twenty-three years old when he painted several of his best-known works, including The Pink Dress (c. 1864, Musée d'Orsay, Paris). This painting combines a portrait-like depiction of Bazille's cousin, Thérèse des Hours, who is seen from behind—and the sunlit landscape at which she gazes.Rosenblum, 1989, p. 225 His best-known painting is Family Reunion, painted 1867–1868 (Musée d'Orsay, Paris).

Frédéric Bazille joined a Zouave regiment in August 1870, a month after the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War. On November 28th of that year he was with his unit at the Battle of Beaune-la-Rolande when his commanding officer was injured. That required him to take command and lead an assault on the German position. He was hit twice in the failed attack and died on the battlefield at the age of twenty-eight. His father travelled to the battlefield a few days later to take his body back for burial at Montpellier in the Protestant cemetery over a week later.

Personal life Bazille never married, claiming it was because of “an early heartbreak with a woman.” He developed intimate friendships with men, such as Edmond Maître, but was also melancholic and claimed to “hav[e] constant migraines while he was painting his nude men.” This and the homoeroticism of his paintings led to modern suggestions that Bazille may have been gay and conflicted about his sexuality.Broude, Norma. “Outing Impressionism: Homosexuality and Homosocial Bonding in the Work of Caillebotte and Bazille,” in Gustave Caillebotte and the Fashioning of Identity in Impressionist Paris, ed. Norma Broude, New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2002, 117-165.

In popular culture Scholars have said that Bazille was the model for "the engaging figure of Félicien d'Hautecœur" in Émile Zola's novel Le Réve.Robert J. Niess made this assertion at least twice, on both occasions as an aside and with no supporting evidence; first (as quoted above) in the article "Wagner and Zola Again", PMLA, Sept., 1958, Vol. 73, No. 4, p. 449; and again in his book Zola, Cézanne, and Manet: A Study of L'Oeuvre, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1968, p. 56. An earlier assertion (also without evidence) that "Zola portrayed him [Bazille] in Le Rêve" as d'Hautecœur was made by Louis Gillet in Revue des Deux Mondes, Vol. 20, No. 3 (April 1, 1934), p. 683.Zola took him as the model for Félicien d'Hautecœur in his fairy tale Le Rêve, and the portrait the novelist paints of his hero seems a true likeness of the images of Bazille that have come down to us: "He resembled a magnificent Jesus, with his curly hair, his light beard, his straight—albeit slightly prominent—nose, and his dark eyes, filled with a haughty gentleness."Davray, Raoul. "Frédéric Bazille", La Vie montpelliéraine, June 4, 1927, p. 6. The quoted passage is from Le Réve, chapter IV.

Main works

La robe rose, (1864) – 147 x 110 cm, Musée d'Orsay, Paris Studio on Rue Furstenberg, (1865) – 80 x 65 cm, Musée Fabre, Montpellier Aigues-Mortes, (1867) – 46 x 55 cm, Musée Fabre, Montpellier Self-portrait, (1865) – 109 x72 cm, Art Institute of Chicago Family Reunion, (1867) – 152 x 230 cm, Musée d'Orsay, Paris Le Pécheur à l'épervier, (1868) – 134 x 83 cm, Fondation Rau pour le tiers-monde, Zürich View of the Village, (1868) – 130 x 89 cm, Musée Fabre, Montpellier Scène d'été, (1869) – 158 x 158 cm, Cambridge, Harvard University La Toilette, (1870) – 132 x 127 cm., Musée Fabre, Montpellier L'Atelier de la rue Condamine, (1870) – 98 x 128.5 cm, Musée d'Orsay, Paris Paysage au bord du Lez, (1870) – 137.8 x 202.5 cm, The Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Minneapolis

Gallery

See also A Studio at Les Batignolles List of paintings by Frédéric Bazille

Notes

References Pitman, Dianne W. (1998). Bazille: Purity, Pose and Painting in the 1860s. University Park: Penn State University Press. . Rosenblum, Robert (1989). Paintings in the Musée d'Orsay. New York: Stewart, Tabori & Chang.

External links

Frédéric Bazille at the National Gallery of Art Bazille Gallery at MuseumSyndicate Impressionism: a centenary exhibition, an exhibition catalog from The Metropolitan Museum of Art (PDF available online), which contains material on Bazille (p. 37–39) Frédéric Bazille and the Birth of Impressionism 2017 exhibit at the National Gallery of Art