Bazille and Camille (Study for "Déjeuner sur l'Herbe")

Bazille and Camille, painted in 1865, is a study for Monet ambitious and controversial Le Dejeuner sur l Herbe, the painting that preceded Manet more famous work of the same name. The study depicts Monet friend Frederic Bazille and his companion Camille Doncieux standing in a forest clearing, their figures rendered in a technique that combines the dark palette of Monet early work with the broken brushwork that was just beginning to emerge. Monet Le Dejeuner sur l Herbe was one of his most ambitious early projects, intended as a large-scale figure-in-landscape composition that would demonstrate his ability to address the most challenging academic subjects. The painting was never completed in its original form, but the surviving studies - including this one - reveal a young artist of extraordinary ambition. The study most interesting feature is its treatment of the figures, which are painted with a freedom and a directness that look forward to Impressionism. Where academic figure painting used smooth, invisible brushwork to create an illusion of reality, Monet renders his figures in visible strokes that assert the physicality of the paint. This combination of figural subject and painterly technique, which would become the hallmark of Impressionist figure painting, is already present in this 1865 study. The relationship between Bazille and Monet, documented in this painting, was one of the most important friendships in the history of Impressionism. Bazille, who came from a wealthy family, supported Monet financially during his most desperate years and provided the studio space where the Impressionist group first gathered. His death in the Franco-Prussian War in 1870 was one of the movement greatest losses.

Monet studies for Le Dejeuner sur l Herbe reveal the origins of Impressionist figure painting and document the friendship between Monet and Bazille that was crucial to the movement development. Their treatment of the human figure in a landscape setting established the method that would define Impressionist figure painting for the next two decades.

This study captures the beginning of the most important artistic revolution since the Renaissance: a young painter, working in a forest clearing, rendering his friends in a new technique that will change the history of art. Bazille and Camille, standing in the dappled light, are both specific people and harbingers of the Impressionism that will transform the way the world sees.