The Artist's Family on a Terrace near Montpellier by Frédéric Bazille is an oil on canvas (59-7/8 x 89-3/8 inches). It can be seen at Musée d'Orsay, Paris.

The Artist's Family on a Terrace near Montpellier by Frederic Bazille

Frédéric Bazille's The Artist's Family on a Terrace near Montpellier (1867) shows his admiration for Edouard Manet. Manet's pioneering formulations for modern-life painting is evident in this painting of Bazille's family on a terrace outside their home in Montpellier. Clear color, simple massing of forms, and attention to the natural action of light recalls the spontaneous freshness of Manet's Music in the Tuileries Garden.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Debra N. Mancoff, Ph.D., is an art historian and lecturer and the author of numerous books on nineteenth-century European and American paintings. She is a scholar in residence at the Newberry Library and an adjunct associate professor and adjunct lecturer at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago.