Jean Frédéric Bazille 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.
Paintings by Frédéric Bazille
Bazille's Studio (1870)
Bazille's Studio (L'atelier de Bazille) is an oil-on-canvas painting created in 1870 by the French Impressionist Frédéric Bazille (with contributions by Édouard Manet). The painting is also known as L'Atelier de la rue Condamine, The Studio, and The Studio on the Rue La Condamine. It has been in the collection of the Musée d'Orsay in Paris since 1986. It shows the artist himself surrounded by his friends and paintings in his studio, capturing the artistic and social conditions of Paris in 1870.
Bazille shared the studio on the rue de la Condamine, in the Batignolles neighborhood of northern Paris, with Pierre-Auguste Renoir from January 1868 to May 1870. Bazille is at the center of the composition, holding a palette, next to a framed painting on the easel. Bazille indicated in a letter that Manet in fact painted his figure in this work. Manet, with his reddish beard and hat, is standing in front of Bazille. On the right, Edmond Maître, a friend of Bazille, is seated in front of the piano under Monet's still life. Art historians differ in their identification of three remaining figures. Claude Monet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Alfred Sisley, Émile Zola and Zacharie Astruc have all been named as possibilities. Dianne Pitman suggests that Renoir and Monet are the ones near the stairs and Astruc is standing beside Manet. Harmon Siegel places Monet beside Manet, with Sisley sitting by the stairs at left and Renoir above him. Others have proposed that Monet is next to Manet, Renoir is seated, and Zola is on the stairs.
View of the Village (1868)
View of the Village is an oil-on-canvas painting created in 1868 by the French Impressionist Jean-Frédéric Bazille, now in the Musée Fabre in Montpellier.
It shows a young woman sitting on a stone ledge overlooking the village of Castelnau-le-Lez in the Hérault department of France.
The Pink Dress (1864)
The Pink Dress (La robe rose) is an oil-on-canvas painting by Frédéric Bazille, produced in 1864 when he was aged 23. The work is now in the Musée d'Orsay, in Paris.
The dimensions of the canvas, kept at the Musée d'Orsay, are a height of 147 cm by a width of 110 cm.
The Family Reunion (painting) (1867)
The Family Reunion or Portraits of the Family is an oil-on-canvas painting executed in 1867 by the French painter Frédéric Bazille. It is the largest surviving canvas (152 by 230 cm) by this artist. It is now in the collection of the Musée d'Orsay in Paris.
The painter took inspiration to create this painting from a meeting that took place at his residence in Méric, near Montpellier, in the summer of 1867. Under the shade of a large chestnut tree, on a sunny day, which enhances the variations between light and shade, Bazille represents his parents seated on a bench, on the left. On the terrace also depicted are his uncle Eugéne des Hours and wife, his cousin Pauline with her husband Émile Teulon, and his brother Marc with his wife Suzanne and another cousin, Camille, back from a walk. The author depiction of himself, at the far left, behind his seated parents, was only included in the composition later.
La Toilette (Bazille) (1870)
La Toilette is an oil-on-canvas painting by the 19th century French impressionist artist Frédéric Bazille, executed in 1869–1870, which has been in the collection of the Musée Fabre in Montpellier, France since 1968. He produced it a few months before his death in the Franco-Prussian War in 1870.
Bazille began this painting in December 1869 with then intent of displaying it at the 1870 Paris Salon, the official art exhibition of the Académie des Beaux-Arts, which was arguably the greatest annual or biennial art event in the Western world. Acceptance at this exhibition would have ensured Bazille's career in the orthodoxy of French painting. He chose a rather conventional theme of a nude woman in her bath, presumably in a Turkish harem, as hinted at by the oriental rug on the wall in the background, and the oriental design on the dress being held by one of the two servant women—a theme which he felt would be received positively by the head judge of the exhibition, Jean-Léon Gérôme, a noted Orientalist painter. Bazille mentioned the painting in letters to his mother, telling her that he had located a "ravishing model" who was "ruinously expensive" and a "superb negress". The figure on the right, fully clothed in a modern striped dress, is believed to have been Lise Tréhot, a Paris model and mistress of Bazille's fellow artist and friend Renoir. She had previously modeled for Bazille for his Femme en costume Mauresque the previous year. At the time the painting was executed Bazille and Renoir shared a Paris studio in rue de la Condamine.
Studio on Rue Furstenberg (1865)
Atelier de la rue Furstenberg (Studio on Rue Furstenberg) is an 1866 oil-on-canvas painting by the 19th century French impressionist artist Frédéric Bazille, which has been in the collection of the Musée Fabre in Montpellier, France since 1985.
Depictions of artist's studios was a popular genre of the early 19th century. This 1866 painting depicts the studio Bazille was sharing with Claude Monet at 6 Place de Furstenberg in the 6th arrondissement of Paris in January 1866. It was located near the center of Paris, on the Left Bank, near the Ecole des Beaux-Arts and within walking distance of the Louvre. After Bazille arrived in Paris in 1864, he initially had no studio of his own and had to borrow from a friend and lodge elsewhere. However, with financial support from his parents, he found a studio with two attached bedrooms which would allow him to save time and money by living and working at the same place. Monet was already familiar with the place having painted his Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe in the same studio in 1865.
Scène d'été (1869)
Scène d'été, Summer Scene, or The Bathers is an oil-on-canvas painting by the French artist Frédéric Bazille from 1869. It is now in the Fogg Art Museum in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The Impressionist painting depicts young men dressed in swimsuits having a leisurely day along the banks of the Lez river near Montpellier. Bazille composed the painting by first drawing the human figures in his Paris studio and then transporting the drawings to the outdoor setting. Like his earlier painting Réunion de famille (1867), Scène d'été captured friends and family members in the outdoors. Scène d'été was exhibited at the Paris Salon in 1870.
It may have been an inspiration for Thomas Eakins' The Swimming Hole (1885), as Eakins was in Paris in 1870 and could have seen Bazille's painting.
Black Woman with Peonies (1870)
Black Woman with Peonies also known as Négresse aux pivoines, Young Woman with Peonies, or Negress with Peonies, is a pair of paintings created by the French Impressionist painter Frédéric Bazille in the spring of 1870. Both paintings are oil on canvas, with one version on display at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. and the other on view at the Musée Fabre in Montpellier, France. The dimensions of both paintings are 60.3 cm (23.7 in) × 75.2 cm (29.6 in).
The Washington painting depicts a Black woman with a bundle of peonies in her hand, staring directly at the viewer with a basket of flowers in her other arm. In the Montpellier painting, the same woman is shown arranging flowers into a vase, with the remaining flowers resting on a workbench. The subject of the painting is thought to be an homage to Édouard Manet's 1863 oil painting Olympia.
Landscape by the Lez River (1870)
Landscape by the Lez River (French: Paysage au bord du Lez) is an oil-on-canvas landscape painting by the 19th-century French impressionist artist Frédéric Bazille, completed in 1870. It is the collection of the Minneapolis Institute of Arts.
This painting is Bazille's last known completed work. In June 1870, Bazille wrote in a letter to his father: "I have just about finished a large landscape (eclogue)." The Franco-Prussian War erupted only two weeks later, and Bazille volunteered for service in a Zouave regiment in August. On November 28 of the same year, he was with his unit at the Battle of Beaune-la-Rolande when, his commanding officer having been injured, he took command and led an assault on the Prussian positions. He was hit twice in the failed attack and was killed in action at the age of twenty-eight.
Ruth et Booz (1870)
Ruth et Booz is an oil-on-canvas painting by the 19th-century French impressionist artist Frédéric Bazille, executed in 1870, which has been in the collection of the Musée Fabre in Montpellier, France since 2004.
Religious art was an unusual theme for Bazille, who is more associated with landscapes and portraits. This painting is a night scene from the Book of Ruth in the Old Testament, depicting the patriarch Boaz sleeping under a night sky with a crescent moon. According to the Bible, Boaz notices Ruth, a widowed Moabite and relative of his, gleaning grain in his fields. He soon learns of her difficult circumstances, as well as her kindness and loyalty to her mother-in-law, Naomi. In the evening, acting on the instructions of Naomi to seduce Boaz, Ruth visits him while he is sleeping and places herself under his power. He later agrees to marry her, and their grandson is David. Bazille depicts Ruth at some distance to Boaz, with her head raised on one elbow. Although her breast is provocatively exposed, she is gazing pensively at the Moon instead of the sleeping Boaz. The theme of Boaz and Ruth was a popular theme with the Paris Salon orthodoxy at the time, and this work may have been reaction by Bazille to the Salon's rejection of his La Toilette earlier that year. However, the scene he chose draws heavily on Victor Hugo's poem Booz endormi, from his 1859 La Légende des siècles. Bazille had also visited the studio of Alexandre Cabanel in 1869 and had an opportunity to see Cabanel's version of Ruth et Booz, based on the same poem.
The Improvised Field Hospital (1865)
The Improvised Field Hospital (French - L'ambulance improvisée) or Monet after His Accident at the Inn of Chailly is an oil-on-canvas painting created in 1865 by the French painter Frédéric Bazille. It shows Claude Monet in bed recovering from a leg injury he had sustained in summer 1865, in Chailly-en-Bière, small village just on the outskirts of the forest of Fontainebleau. The work has been in the Musée d'Orsay in Paris since 1986.
The Musée d'Orsay notes of the painting, "Bazille, whose work falls between Courbet's Realism and a nascent Impressionism, renders the event in every detail. On the untidy bed one can clearly see the red, inflamed wound on Monet's shin, while his face expresses his despondency at being immobilised in this way. The intimacy of the scene demonstrates the bonds of friendship between the two men."
Femme en costume Mauresque (1869)
Femme en costume Mauresque is an oil-on-canvas painting by the 19th-century French impressionist artist Frédéric Bazille, completed in 1869. It has been in the collection of the Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena, California, since 1997.
This painting is an example of Bazille's interest in Orientalism. The model is Lise Tréhot, the mistress and model of Bazille's friend Renoir, who appears in more than twenty paintings by Renoir during his early Salon period from approximately 1866 until 1872. She would later model for Bazille again in his 1870 La Toilette. At the time the painting was executed, Bazille and Renoir shared a Paris studio in rue de la Condamine.