Summer Scene

When this painting was first displayed at the Salon of 1870, critic and artist Zacharie Astruc praised Bazille, remarking, "The sun floods his canvases with light." Bazille started this work in his Paris studio and later finished the landscape details in southern France, inspired by the river Lez, a scene he painted there. While the figures draw from Italian Renaissance artists like Andrea Mantegna and Sebastiano del Piombo, the painting's theme might have been influenced by Manette Salomon (1867) a contemporary novel by the Goncourt brothers, which portrays a vivid scene of young men bathing.

Frédéric Bazille, a pivotal figure in the development of what would become Impressionism, tragically lost his life in the Franco-Prussian War, four years before the inaugural Impressionist exhibition. It was such a tragedy for the art world! Nobody knows how art history would have developed if Frédéric Bazille had not died so young. Still, he is the missing link between Manet's realism and Monet's Impressionism. In our online course on French Impressionism, you can learn why his role was so important in shaping the movement. Click here to enroll.  :) 

P.S. Check out the greatest male nudes in art history! If you are hungry for even more naked bodies presented by artists, take our Nudes in Art QUIZ!  :)