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| Bazille, Terrace in Méric, 1866-67 |
Frédéric Bazille met Monet,
Renoir and Sisley in the atelier of Gleyre. His father wanted him to be a doctor, but he would not take the exams. After
the anatomy classes he would go to paint, and he painted and kept painting and
painting… until his father understood.
He was from a wall-off family from Montpellier:
he did not need to sell his paintings to survive. He was a good man, always
there to help his friends. Monet, who always in a desperate situation, begged
him for money now and then, and Frédéric was always there. It was this way so
much that he even bought Monet’s “Women in the garden” to help him.
They shared atelier, and for their friendship,
they would share experiences and techniques, going outdoors to paint, as Corot,
Courbet and Millet did (those who we call ‘pre-impressionists’, even though it
was in them where the artistic revolution germ was).
Sadly, Bazille died too young, in the battle of
Beaune-la-Roland, when he was 29 years old. He had got to avoid going to the
army thanks to his dad’s contacts, but he enrolled voluntarily for the
Franco-Prussian war and he died 3 months later. He left few paintings, fruits
of his great talent.
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Sources: Delafond,M.- Genet-Bondeville, C. Frédéric
Bazille. Val d’Aosta, La Bibliothèque des Arts, 2003
Feist, P.H. Impressionismus, Köln, Benedikt Taschen Verlag, 1996
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