Auguste Renoir

In 1867 the word Impressionism did not yet exist, and the young men who would later carry it were mostly poor. Frédéric Bazille was sharing a Paris studio with Auguste Renoir, and when there was no money for a model, the painters simply sat for each other. This is one of those days. Renoir is folded into a chair, knees up, hands loose, wearing an ordinary dark jacket and a blue cravat, watching his friend work. He is about 26, years away from the reputation that would make his name. Bazille painted him plainly, against a bare background, with nothing to announce that either of them mattered yet. Bazille himself would not see much of what came next. He was killed in the Franco-Prussian War in 1870, at 28.