Family Reunion 152×230 cm Oil on canvas 1867 Paris Musée d'Orsay Frédéric Bazille (1841–1870), one of the founders of French Impressionism, came from an upper-class banking family. He was interested in Delacroix and Courbet's works from a young age and had considerable humanistic cultivation. Following his father's wishes, he studied medicine, but in 1862 he went north to Paris and began to turn toward painting art. Like Sisley, he entered Charles Gleyre's studio at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, where he met Monet, Sisley, Renoir, and other like-minded artists, forming the core figures of Impressionism with these few.

The talented Bazille was initially influenced by the Barbizon School and later turned to plein air sketching. He once served as a model for Monet; the tall figure wearing a hat in A Luncheon on the Grass is him. He was an early financial patron of Monet and also a pioneer of the first outdoor group portrait painting of Impressionism. In 1870, during the Franco-Prussian War, he died in a battle, leaving this colorful and versatile artist, who has almost been forgotten, missing from the Impressionist movement.

Family Reunion is Bazille's most perfect and successful masterpiece (he was only 26 years old at the time; we can imagine what might have been, unfortunately cut short by his early death). In the afternoon under a clear sky, the family gathers under the shade of a large tree on the terrace in the backyard, with the bright sky of southern France and refreshing outdoor scenery before them (like a stage set). Amidst its strongly contrasting colors and dramatic figures, with rhythmic poses and forms, each with distinct personalities, it presents a smooth and natural scene imbued with a sense of intimacy. Especially, these elegantly dressed ladies present a somewhat understated elegance. The men appear somewhat serious. From left to right, we see the painter Bazille himself, his uncle Hours, his mother and father, his cousin Prun and her husband Tyrone, his cousin Thérèse and his brother Marc, his sister-in-law, and nephew Camille, among others, all participating in this happy family gathering, expressing the interests and structural relationships of upper-class families at that time.

Through Bazille's highly skilled realism, contrasting colors, and rigorous composition, it becomes one of the most representative and dramatic genre paintings of daily life in Impressionism.