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Friday
Sep042015

Jean-Frédéric Bazille: An Arresting Young Artist

DateFriday, September 4, 2015 at 8:00AM

Jean-Frédéric Bazille - Bathers (Summer Scene) - 1869 - Oil on canvas, 158 x 159 cm - Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University, Cambridge (click photo for larger image)In the summer of 1869 at Méric, Jean-Frédéric Bazille (1841-1870) had painted one of his most striking works, one that gained acceptance by the 1870 Salon. The Bathers shows a number of youths in a grove of birches, fooling about and bathing in a pool. There are definitely flaws in the execution of the painting. But what is arresting in this picture (by a man still in his twenties) is its view of life and of man, and its determination to rediscover the figurative values of the old masters in modern everyday life. The man leaning against the tree at left resembles a St. Sebastian, the reclining youth an ancient river deity, and the helpfulness of the man at right may recall Christ helping the damned up out of purgatory.

AuthorJill | CommentPost a Comment |

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