After our time at the Hirshhorn we crossed The Mall to check out have some lunch over at The National Gallery of Art. After sharing a wonderful lunch in the Garden Cafe we discovered their current exhibit Frederic Bazille and the Birth of Impressionism.
Fabulous!
A Pierre-Auguste Renoir on the left of Federic Bazzile painting his Still Life with Heron on right.
Federic Brazil was an early impressionist who came of age with Renoir, Monet, Manet, Cezzane and likes. They were a close group and there are many paintings where they painted the same subjects and each other.
Fearsome stands amount the Beards of the great impressionists.
This last painting above is a Bazille that includes many of his impressionist friends in his studio, Bazille is the tallest standing beside the easel. Bazille’s parents always kept him in a studio in Paris and his young impressionist friends, including Renoir & Monet, often stayed and even lived with him in his various Paris studios. Note the painting on the upper left above the man on the stairs as it is the painting of the male nude featured above.
Bazille joined the Army at 29 years of age and left his young impressionist friends behind to only be tragically killed on his first assignment. He never gained the refinement nor fame that his contemporaries did due to his unfortunate untimely death.
Rumors do swirl around why he left and joined a faction of the army to fight on the front lines. Was he in love with one of his contemporaries that couldn’t be fulfilled? Did he need to get away? Was it almost an act of suicide? Or was he just looking for male companionship in the trenches? Rumors that will never be confirmed.
Homosexuality was quite frowned upon at the time and the place where he and his friends lived and bromanced. His counterparts went on to marry, he ran away. He housed and supported them and maybe it was only friendship. We will never know. We do know that the loss of his life at such a young age deprived the impressionist movement of a budding young talent who had hardly began his journey.
Frederic Bazille
Fearsome Beard 
looks like a handsome fellow. sorry he had to hide who he was. 😦
Now how did you get into the painting?
Fearsome can be quite magical.
Oh, please. My gaydar is going off like a squadron of fire engines in full siren mode. Just from his stance in that photo, let alone the subject matter and sensibilities of his paintings.
Thanks for sharing his story. I’ll have to look into him.
That last one is a massive painting! I wonder how long it took to paint, and how many “re-dos” occurred while painting it?
That’s actually a blown up copy to end the exhibit but the original is there and is quite large just not that large.
Well darn. I figured the paint was still drying on that thing.