Berthe Morisot wrote to her sister Edina Pontillon, in a letter
dated May 1, 1869, about View of the Village, which she'd seen
at the Salon: "The tall fellow Bazille has done something I find
quite good: it's a young girl in a very light dress, in the shade
of a tree beyond which one sees a village. He's trying to do what
we have so often attempted, to place a figure in the open air:
this time it seems to me he's succeeded."'
The painting was submitted for the Salon of 1869, along with
Fisherman with a Net. The painter Alfred Stevens, who had admired
View of the Village in the artist's studio, wrote to Bazille to
inform him that his painting had been accepted by the jury:
"My dear Bazille, your painting of the woman is accepted; I am happy
to convey this good news to you. You were defended (between us)
by Bormat and... can you guess who else? By Cabanel." This
astonished the young painter: "The jury made quite a massacre of the
canvases of the four or five young painters of our circle. Only one
of my canvases was accepted: the woman. Aside from Manet,
whom they no longer dare refuse, I am one of the least badly
treated. Monet was completely refused. What gives me pleasure
is that there's real animosity towards us. It was M. Gerome
who did us in, he described us as a band of madmen, and declared
he felt it was his duty to do everything he could to prevent our
paintings from appearing. All that's not so bad, when I've made
a really good painting it will just have to be seen. I was defended,
to my great astonishment, by Cabanel.
