1865
Huile sur toile
81 x 100,3 cm - 31 7/8 x 39 1/2 in.
Signé et daté en bas à gauche : F. Bazille, 1865
Chicago, The Art Institute of Chicago, Etats-Unis - Inv. 1973.64
Dernière mise à jour : 2023-12-22 18:37:35
Référence : MSb-14
Famille de l’artiste - Marc Bazille, frère de l’artiste - Mme Meynier de Salinelles, fille de Marc Bazille - Marc Meynier de Salinelles - Vente Paris, Palais Galliéra, 17 mars 1971, n° A - Sam Salz, New York - The Art Institute of Chicago (The Charles H. and Mary F. S. Worcester Collection, 1973).
Paris, Grand Palais, 1910, Salon d'automne, n° 4 [Confondu avec Lisière de forêt à Fontainebleau] - Montpellier, Exposition internationale, 1927, Rétrospective Bazille, n° 5 - Paris, galerie des Beaux-Arts, 1937, Naissance de l’impressionnisme, n° 56 - Montpellier, musée Fabre, 1941, n° 14 - Londres, Royal Academy, 1949-1950, Landscape in French Art, n° 224 - Paris, galerie Wildenstein, 1950, n° 18 - Chicago, The Art Institute of Chicago, 1978, n° 14, repr. p. 50 - Albi, musée Toulouse-Lautrec, 1980, Trésors impressionnistes du musée de Chicago, n° 16 - Paris, Los Angeles, Chicago, 1984-1985, L’impressionnisme et le paysage français, n° 7, repr. coul. p. 56 - Edimbourg, National Gallery of Scotland, 1986, Lighting up the Landscape. French Impressionism and its Origins, n° 61 - Pitman, Catalogue exp. Montpellier, New York, 1992-1993, n° 11, repr. p. 92 - Paris, Grand Palais, 1994, Impressionnisme. Les Origines 1859-1874, n° 3, p. 330, repr. pl. 97 [Les références sont du catalogue en français] - New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1994-1995 [La même exposition] - Atlanta, High Museum, 1999, n° 12, repr. p. 44 - Paris, musée Marmottan Monet, 2003-2004, cat. 7, repr. p. 24 - Hilaire, Jones, Perrin, Catalogue exp. Montpellier, Paris, Washington, 2016-2017, cat. 24, repr. p. 229 et p. 59 [Les références sont du catalogue en français].
Charensol, L'Amour de l'Art, janvier 1927, p. 26 - Poulain, Bazille et ses amis, 1932, n° 10, pp. 53, 56, 212-213 - Guérif, A la recherche d'une esthétique protestante, 1943, p. 30 - Sarraute, Catalogue de l'œuvre de Frédéric Bazille, 1948, n° 13, pp. 27-28 [Thèse de l'Ecole du Louvre non publiée] - Kunstler, L'Opéra, 28 juin 1950 - Daulte, Frédéric Bazille et son temps, 1952, n° 12 , pp. 110, 171 (repr.) [Thèse sous la direction de Gaston Poulain] - Rewald, Histoire de l'Impressionnisme, 1973, pp. 98, 138 (repr.) [Réédition de 1946] - Gazette des Beaux-Arts, fév. 1974, p. 139 (repr.) - Marandel, Catalogue exp. The Art Institute of Chicago, 1978, n° 14, repr. p. 50 - Brettell, French Salon Artists, 1987, p. 78, repr. p. 80 - Daulte, Frédéric Bazille : Catalogue raisonné de l'oeuvre peint, 1992, n° 12, p. 39 (repr. coul.), pp. 104, 158 [Réédition de 1952 avec photos en couleur] - Jourdan, Vuatone, Catalogue exp. Montpellier, New York, 1992-1993, n° 11, repr. p. 92 - Bajou, Frédéric Bazille, 1993, p. 78 (repr.) - Adams, L'Ecole de Barbizon : aux sources de l'Impressionnisme, 1994, p. 203, pl. 150 - Schulman, Frédéric Bazille : Catalogue raisonné, 1995, n° 14, repr. p. 122 - Pitman, Bazille : Purity, Pose and Painting in the 1860s, 1998, pp. 128-129 - Champa, Pitman, Catalogue exp. High Museum, Atlanta, 1999, n° 12, repr. p. 44 - Hilaire, Jones, Perrin, Catalogue exp. Montpellier, Paris, Washington, 2016-2017, cat. 24, repr. p. 229 et p. 59 [Les références sont du catalogue en français] - Schulman, Frédéric Bazille : Catalogue raisonné numérique, 2022, n° 14.
In the foreground, the sandstone rocks stand out in shape and color. Bazille did not try to draw them meticulously; it was their masses that he was interested in, rendering them with energetic brushstrokes and white or bluish-gray patches that well capture their tones. In the background, a clearing dotted with small, spindly shrubs and heather. Finally, in the background, the forest, thick trees, some of which absorb the light while others reflect the sun's beams. All of this landscape is illuminated and dominated by an azure blue sky in which a few large white and gray clouds are clearly cut out.
Our observations regarding the dates of the Forest of Fontainebleau are valid also for the Landscape at Chailly. Both were painted at the same time. But what differences between the two paintings! As much as the first is sullen and monochromatic, the second is bright and warm, which will make Champa say that Bazille "looks in different directions at the same time without taking the time to delve into any of them" [Champa, 1973, p. 81].
To the classical tradition, he owes the ordering of the subject; here a simple clearing, but he uses light that emphasizes the essential spaces of the landscape. In this, he comes close to Monet's La Promenade (1865-1867) [The National Museum of Western Art, Matsukata Collection, Tokyo]. Certainly, Bazille's attitude is unsteady, but that does not mean that he is not fully involved in each of the paintings he executes.
Close to Monet in the play of light, he is also close to Sisley in the freedom of his touch, noticeable in particular with the latter in Le Chataîgner à la Celle-Saint-Cloud painted in 1865 [Ordrupgaard, Copenhagen]. In the other, the foregrounds are expressed by a vigorous touch. Bazille, too, was careful to emphasize the outline of the rocks with a bluish palette. Sisley stayed at Marlotte between 1864 and 1866; it is likely that he met Bazille there.
We cannot avoid mentioning, however, the very likely influence of Théodore Rousseau, whom Bazille admired, whose La Mare he certainly saw since it was part of the Bruyas collection. Corot's will not escape us either, and it is through the clarity as well as the "almost schematic structure" [Jones, p. 58] that we find the influence of the one on the other.
Finally, we will remember Jones's remark when she speaks of the influence of photographers on Bazille and, we would say, on the landscape painters of the period in general. We know that they made the forest of Fontainebleau a favorite land, thus renewing their perception and their view of nature.
