Frédéric Bazille Biography

Jean Frédéric Bazille (1841-1870) 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.

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. His best-known painting is Family Reunion, painted 1867–1868.

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.

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 “have 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.