mheu, Historical Museum of the Urban Environment

The artist

The Franco-Prussian War (1870), like the Great War of 1914-18, brutally cut short promising artistic careers. Jean Frédéric Bazille's life is such an example. Born in 1841 in Montpellier, he became interested in painting after seeing the works of Delacroix. Having moved to Paris to study medicine, he encountered Renoir, Sisley and impressionism and threw himself wholeheartedly into a life in the arts. Given that he was comfortably well off, he supported the painters of his immediate circle, such as Claude Monet and Edouard Manet. The events of 1870 sealed his fate: he was killed during an attack on Prussian lines while serving with a Zouave regiment.