Frédéric Bazille, Ambulance improvisée, Nov 15, 1865, © Musée d’Orsay, Patrice Schmidt (Monet wounded in the leg lies in bed at Auberge du Lion d’Or in Chailly)
Would Frédéric Bazille have achieved the fame and success of Monet and Renoir had he not been killed at 28 near Orléans in the Franco Prussian war of 1870? The 60 works that he leaves behind, show his progressing talent and his large correspondence is like a reporter’s diary on what was going on in Paris in the 1860’s. The Musée d’Orsay exhibition (on the 5th floor) is a little jewel which shows the importance of friendship among the impressionists and their shared daily life and talent.
Frédéric Bazille, Portraits de la famille, dit La Réunion de famille, summer 1867 – winter 1868, © Musée d’Orsay, Patrice Schmidt
Organized with Montpellier’s Musée Fabre (Bazille was raised there in a protestant family, his father was mayor and senator), the National Gallery in Washington and Musée d’Orsay, the show subtitled « The youth of Impressionism » reunites many Monet, Manet, Renoir, Cézanne paintings which mirror Bazille’s work. It is extraordinary to discover this young man who started out studying medicine to please his parents and eventually moved to Paris to live at the heart of creativity, sharing his studios with Monet, Renoir and Sisley. He his a keen musician and plays the piano, is passionate about Berlioz, Schumann and Richard Wagner, then almost unknown in France. His taste in music is romantic not as avant-garde as his art.
Studio of rue de la Condamine, 1869-1870, Maître is at the piano, Renoir is on the staircase, Monet and Manet discuss a painting © Musée d’Orsay, Patrice Schmidt
Pierre Auguste Renoir (1841-1919), Frédéric Bazille, 1867, © Musée d’Orsay, Patrice Schmidt
I did not particularly like his still lives of game and animals and his flowers arrangements. But I enjoyed comparing his paintings which are hung next to those of more famous artists like the « Marine à Sainte Adresse », or his « Toilette, 1870 » reminiscent of Delacroix and his famous « Summer scene » which reminds us of Courbet « The fighters ».
What is most fascinating in the show is the description he makes in his letters to his parents, of the artistic scene in Paris. As a richer son of a bourgeois family, he is able to put up the less affluent artists. It is also fun to discover his numerous portraits by other painters and to enter their daily world.
Frédéric Bazille, Portrait of Renoir, 1868-69, © Musée d’Orsay, Patrice Schmidt
After he dies, Bazille disappears from the art world until two of his works are included in 1900 in the art show of the Exposition Universelle. His grand daughter gives ” Summer scene ” to the Harvard museum in 1937, Montpellier celebrates his 100 th anniversary with a retrospective in 1941 and Galerie Wildenstein organises a retrospective in 1950. The Art Institute of Chicago gives him the first exhibition outside France in 1978.
Frédéric Bazille,The Ramparts at Aigues-Mortes, 1867, oil on canvas, Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon
The show curated by Michel Hillaire of Musée Fabre, Paul Perrin from Orsay and Kimberly A. Jones from the National Gallery is an intellectual as well as a visual delight. And it is not too large so you can return to the Second Empire show on the ground floor afterwards. (Musée d’Orsay, until March 5, 2017)
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One Comment on “The short and tragic life of Frédéric Bazille at Orsay”
Just a note re: your text: The artist himself did not have a grand-daughter–must be one of his siblings’ line. According to all genealogical records I can find. His brother Marc I know had children.