1870
Huile sur toile
60 x 75 cm - 23 13/16 x 29 11/16 in.
Signé et daté en bas à gauche : F. Bazille, 1870
Montpellier, Musée Fabre, France - Inv. 18.1.3
Dernière mise à jour : 2022-03-25 09:07:49
Référence : MSb-60
Famille de l’artiste, Montpellier - Marc Bazille, frère de l’artiste - Don de Marc Bazille au musée Fabre en 1918.
Paris, Grand Palais, 1910, Salon d'automne, Rétrospectibe Bazille, n° 22 - Saint-Pétersbourg, 1911, Centennale de l’art français au XIXe siècle, n° 7 - Montpellier, musée Fabre, 1927, n° 29 - Paris, Exposition coloniale, 1931, Rétrospective de la section de synthèse des Beaux-Arts - Paris, musée de l’Orangerie, 1939, Chefs- d’œuvre du musée de Montpellier, n° 8 - Berne, Kunsthalle, 1939, Meisterwerke des Museums in Montpellier, n° 6 - Montpellier, musée Fabre, 1941, n° 34 - Paris, galerie Wildenstein, 1950, n° 54 (repr.) - Montpellier, musée Fabre, 1959, n° 36 - Bordeaux, 1960, L’Europe et la découverte du monde, n° 99 - Munich, Haus der Kunst, 1964-1965, Französische Malerei des 19 Jahrhunderts, von David bis Cézanne, n° 3 - Montpellier, musée Fabre, 1970-1971, Hommage à Frédéric Bazille - Paris, musée des Arts décoratifs, 9 mars -14 mai 1973, Equivoques (repr.) (s.n.) - Bordeaux, galerie des Beaux-Arts, 1974, Naissance de l’impressionnisme, n° 87, repr. coul. p. 124 - Chicago, The Art Institute of Chicago, 1978, n° 55, repr. p. 113 - Philadelphie, Detroit, Paris, 1979, L’art en France sous le Second Empire, n° 172 (repr.) - Osaka, K. Matsushita Foundation Museum, 1990, Human Shape and Flower, n° 39, repr. p. 101 - Montpellier, musée Fabre, 1991-1992, Bazille : 150e anniversaire, n° 46 - Montpellier, New York, 1992-1993, n° 27, p. 19, fig. 16 - Paris, New York, 1994-1995, Impressionnisme. Les origines 1859-1874, n° 14, cat. 396, p. 337, repr. pl. 282 - New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1994-1995 [La même exposition. Les références sont du catalogue en français] - Montpellier, musée Fabre, 2001, Chefs-d'œuvre du musée Fabre et du musée d'Orsay [s.n.] - Rome, Complesso del Vittoriano, 2003, Ritratti figure. Capolavori impressionisti, n° 45 (repr.) -Canberra, National Gallery of Australia, 2003-2004, n° 81 - Tokyo, Ibaraki, Yamanashi, Osaka, 2005-2006, n° 72 - Edimbourg, National Gallery of Scotland, 2010, Impressionist Gardens, n° 13, repr. p. 37 - Montpellier, Paris, Washington, 2016-2017, cat. 62, repr. p. 254, p. 178-179 et p. 80, 89 (Détails) [Les références sont du catalogue en français].
Joubin, Catalogue des peintures et sculptures du musée Fabre, 1926, n° 365, p. 115 - Poulain, L'Eclair du Midi, 1er nov. 1926 - Joubin, Musée de Montpellier. Peinture et sculpture, 1929, p. 21 - Alazard, Gazette des Beaux-Arts, 1931, p. 240 - Poulain, Bazille et ses amis, 1932, n° 39, pp. 168, 176 et p. 218 - Fiérens, Le Journal des Débats, 12 juillet 1932 - Fliche, Les villes d'art célèbres : Montpellier, 1935, pp. 135-136 - Paris, galerie des Beaux-Arts, 7 mai 1937, Naissance de l’impressionnisme (repr.) - Goulinat, Le dessin, mars 1939, p. 454 - « Le musée de Montpellier à l’Orangerie », Beaux- Arts, 24 mars 1939, n° 325 - J. G., L'Art vivant, avril 1939, p. 42 - Sjöberg, La Revue des Jeunes, 10 avril 1939, p. 503 - Espezel, La Revue de Paris, 15 avril 1939, p. 910 - Sérullaz, Etudes, 20 avril 1939, p. 245 - Guérif, A la recherche d'une esthétique protestante, 1943, pp. 24-25 - Prinçay, Cahiers du sud, 1947, p. 869 - Sarraute, Catalogue de l'œuvre de Frédéric Bazille, 1948, pp. 96-97, n° 39, p. 110, 114 - Daulte, Arts, 9 juin 1950, n° 266 - Wildenstein, Arts, 9 juin 1950, n° 266 - Claparède, Réforme, 24 juin 1950 - Romane-Musculus, Réforme, 24 juin 1950, p. 50 - Daulte, Frédéric Bazille et son temps, 1952, n° 51, pp. 78, 128-129, 188 - Bezombes, L'exotisme dans l'art et la pensée, 1953, n° 303, p. 103 - Descossy, Des Primitifs à Nicolas de Staël, 1958 - Laclotte, Vergnet-Ruiz, Petits et grands musées de France, 1962, p. 179, cité p. 226 - Courthion, Autour de l'impressionisme, 1964, p. 27, repr. coul. pl. 27 - Daulte, Connaissance des Arts, déc. 1970, p. 90 - Sérullaz, L'Impressionnisme, 1972, p. 32 - Dauriac, Pantheon, janv. 1980 (repr.) - Bajou, Chefs-d'œuvre de la peinture, 1988, p. 186, repr. p. 187 - Honour, L'image du noir dans l'art occidental, 1988, n° 154 (repr.) - Daulte, Frédéric Bazille : Catalogue raisonné de l'œuvre peint, 1992, pp. 78, 128 (repr. coul. p. 76) et p. 180, n° 59 (repr.) - Michel, Bazille, 1992, p. 253 - Bajou, Frédéric Bazille, 1993, p. 166 (repr.) - Schulman, Frédéric Bazille : Catalogue raisonné, 1995, n° 60, p. 212 - Pitman, Bazille : Purity, Pose and Painting in the 1860s, 1998, pp. 179-183 - Zutter, Catalogue exp. Canberra, National Gallery of Australia, 2003-2004, n° 81, pp. 224-225 - Hilaire, Cat. exp. Tokyo, Ibaraki, Yamanashi, Osaka, Nagasaki, 2005-2006, n° 72, p. 189 - Hilaire, Guide du musée Fabre, 2006, n° 177, p. 192 - Willsdon, Cat. exp. Edimbourg, National Gallery of Scotland, 2010, Impressionist Gardens, n° 14, repr. p. 37 - Clarke, Willsdon, Cat. exp. Madrid, museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, 2010-2011, fig. 18, repr. p. 53 - Hilaire, Jones, Perrin, Cat. exp. Montpellier, Paris, Washington, 2016-2017, cat. 62, repr. p. 254, pp. 178-179 et p. 80, 89 (Détails) [Les références sont du catalogue en français] - Murrell, Cat. exp. New York, Wallach Art Gallery, 2018-2019. fig. 78, repr. p. 76 - Cat. exp. Paris, musée d'Orsay, 2019, fig. 131, repr. p. 183 - Schulman, Frédéric Bazille : Catalogue raisonné numérique, 2022, n° 60.
Presumably taking advantage of the same model as for La Toilette, Bazille executed his last floral compositions in the studio, including this early Young Woman with Peonies [Previously Négresse aux pivoines], which is one of his most endearing and representative paintings. As the 1979 exhibition catalogue points out, including a woman in a painting of flowers "was a new trend" [L'art français sous le Second Empire, Paris, Grand-Palais, 1979, p. 172]. This step that Bazille easily took shows how much his imagination was looking for varied subjects and how he was gradually getting closer to Manet.
The black woman, seen from three quarters, is here arranging flowers in a wide-splayed vase set on a wooden table, the veins of which can be seen in the foreground. She is depicted in bust form, her left hand holding a sprig of laburnum, her right one pricking a peony from the vase. On the table, other flowers, snowballs and peonies, fill the space between the vase and the black woman. The latter is dressed in a blue-gray dress and wears a madras scarf tied behind her head. The light, as in the other floral composition, comes from the right; it illuminates the dress and the left cheek of the woman, as well as the peonies. Bazille has given up the cold tones, some greens and blues, and adopts here warm tones, reds, pinks and browns that suggest an exotic perfume. One thinks of the Orient, of Delacroix and the Orientalist painters but, as Alazard says, "the Orient was of little interest to the Impressionists. The stays of Lebourg and Renoir remain exceptions. As for Cézanne's Nègre, Degas's Bureau de coton, and our Jeune Femme aux pivoines, "these are pictures that appear in a history of exoticism only through the subject" [Alazard, 1931, p. 24]. Even if Bazille sacrificed to fashion, there is no passion for orientalism here. The black woman, as in Manet's Olympia, is not an evocation of an Orient that remains for Bazille distant and abstract, seen only through the works of other painters. The woman's scarf recalls the colors of the peonies in the vase on the table, and her dress those of the other flowers. Whiteness not transparent but opaque, contrasting with the dark background.
On the left, the vase and the flowers occupy the other half of the painting. The spatial organization is interesting. Bazille has left almost nothing to chance and has filled in the blanks, so that the bouquet and the black woman occupy the entire surface of the work. One wonders who, of the flowers or the character, ultimately prevails. "The exuberance of the flowers is combined with the mysterious sensuality of the woman", writes Bajou [Bajou, 1988, p. 186]. There is here, indeed, like a celebration of beauty, even if Courthion finds the face "impasto, the heavy bodice, little elegance" [Courthion, 1964, p. 27].
Effectively, there is nothing really seductive about the model in the usual sense. But it nevertheless exudes a sensuality that has nothing to do with carnal effects. In fact, the atmosphere prevails over everything else. The exuberance of the flowers contrasts with the discretion of the character. All of Bazille's paintings "have an atmosphere of their own, a dominant tone", Daulte notes [Daulte, Arts, June 9, 1950, no. 266]. The "dominant tonality" is given here by the dark colors: the black woman, the vase and the background of the painting, the latter deliberately accentuating the contrasts. The flowers on the table are not thrown at random because the red ones alternate with the white ones, the whole resting on some green leaves. These flowers are reminiscent, as Marandel points out, of Fantin-Latour's floral compositions, and also of the "heavy and powerful flowers of the maître d'Ornans [Wildenstein, Arts, June 9, 1950, p. 8]" [Note the signature in red, not unlike Courbet's habits].
But here again, one must turn to Manet and more particularly to the Olympia to detect the most obvious similarities. In the layout, first of all: the two black women occupy, in both paintings, an identical place; they are both represented on the right, the bust three-quarters and looking, one at the bouquet of flowers, the other at his mistress. The same look characterizes them. The flowers in the Olympia as well as those in Bazille's painting worn by the black women are as lush and colorful as each other. They play a central role: that of attracting the eyes even though, in the Olympia, the bouquet of flowers is spatially less important. In each painting, the black woman inspires immediate sympathy, each with a childlike, pleasing face.
Manet's work was executed in 1863 and Bazille had the opportunity to see it on several occasions. We must emphasize this filiation, which seems essential to us because this "echo of the Olympia hinted," as Sérullaz says, at a "personality and talent of great class; he [Bazille] announced himself as one of the masters of the new formulas of French art and as the true precursor and leader of our Impressionist school" [Sérullaz, Studies, April 20, 1939, p. 245].
Evidently, Bazille is distancing himself here from Monet, yet so close to him in other respects. In the Young Woman with Peonies, on the other hand, he shows himself to be the equal of Manet.
Bazille's still-lives [Exhibition catalogue 2016-2017, p. 81] made for want of a model can hardly be called an "outlet". As Thoré-Burger writes, "There is no still life. Everything lives and moves. Everything breathes and expires, everything metamorphoses at every moment" [ William Burger, Musées de Hollande, 1858-1860, p. 318]. Bazille does not escape this general rule of nature and if, obviously, the flowers can be qualified as still-lives - which remains to be argued - this is not the case with his model. As for the destination of his still-lives, it will not be said that "Bazille sometimes paints his still-lives out of spite or commercial interest" [P. 85]. We know indeed his passion for flowers in the greenhouse at Méric and that for scoter hunting with his father, which he mentions in his correspondence.
