Focus on this artwork and discuss the Inspiration.
Though Bazille's Scène d'été contains many modern elements, the poses of some figures resemble those found in older paintings. The figure in the left of the foreground, leaning against the tree, closely resembles the primary figure in Jacopo Bassano's The Martyrdom of St. Sebastian (1574), sharing both the same location on the canvas and the similarity in pose. Bazille would have even seen this painting at the Musée des Beaux-Arts, Dijon in 1868, and Bazille drew the St. Sebastian figure itself in one of his sketchbooks.
The reclining man on the riverbank evokes the reclining figure of Laurent de la Hyre's Landscape with Shepherd Playing the Flute (1647), a painting belonging to the Musée Fabre in Montpellier itself. Additionally, the seated figure undressing, seen in Bazille's preparatory drawings but not included in the final painting, recalls the figure engaged in the same action in Nicolas Poussin's St. John Baptizes the People (1635–37), located at the Musée du Louvre, Paris.: 143  Finally, the wrestlers in the center of the canvas were likely inspired by Gustave Courbet's The Wrestlers (1853), which features two male figures, clothed similarly to the figures of Scène d'été, engaged in a wrestling match akin to the one shown in Bazille's painting.
Nicolas Poussin Montpellier canvas Musée des Beaux-Arts, Dijon Jacopo Bassano Musée Fabre Gustave Courbet Laurent de la Hyre