Nearly a decade ago, I was fortunate enough to view the exhibition “Frédéric Bazille and the Birth of Impressionism” at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. It was the first major American presentation of Bazille’s work in 25 years, and Washington – its only U.S. venue – was the exhibition’s final stop on the tour. Because such a substantial collection of his paintings so rarely journeys across the Atlantic, we made the journey from New York City to see them assembled on American shores.
Among the works in the retrospective was “The Family Gathering (Réunion de famille),” which Bazille completed in 1867 and, much to his delight, was accepted for exhibition at the Paris Salon of 1868. The scene brought together members of the Bazille and des Hours-Farel families on the terrace at Méric, shaded by a chestnut tree. Bazille labored over the painting for eight months, and it is regarded as one of his major works. After viewing it, Émile Zola – the French novelist and critic who championed the emerging generation of modern painters – praised it for its “strong love of truth.”
This past Sunday, Aug. 30, Willard Bass Park in Sharon hosted its own version of the outdoor reunion Bazille depicted so masterfully – continuing a tradition that has endured there for 135 years.
The announcement on the town’s website simply asked people to bring lunch, park at the Meetinghouse and walk a short distance south on Route 123. Those who wished could bring a dessert to share. Everyone was welcome – including, as the notice specified, “anyone else interested in Sharon.”
It is, in other words, the kind of afternoon Bazille painted: unhurried, with family and friends gathered outdoors and no agenda beyond food, camaraderie and coming together. The annual picnic at Bass Park offers a civic version of the “truth” Zola recognized in Bazille’s painting: neighbors returning to a familiar place to break bread together en plein air, and, in the process, strengthening, enriching, and enlivening their community.
The Sharon gathering, however, is not merely a beloved custom; it is also, quite literally, a condition of the land’s preservation.
In 1890, at the sixth reunion of Sharon residents, Samuel Willard Bass, who was born and raised in Sharon, made the journey from Lawrence, Mass., to attend the annual gathering. He offered $75 toward purchasing the stand of old pine trees known locally as Hadley’s Grove from the heirs of John Hadley. For fencing, the Rev. Burr of Boston contributed an additional $25. A year later, the land was renamed Willard Bass Park, and in 1897, the parcel was placed in trust for the “purpose of holding thereon public picnics.” In 1933, Ruth Taggart Rice donated a second parcel, creating the 1.6-acre park that remains to this day.
That promise has outlasted a great deal.
In 1938, a hurricane felled every one of the grove’s hundred-foot pines and crushed the stage where speakers and entertainers once stood. Four years later, fir trees were hauled from Fox Forest in Hillsborough to repopulate the grounds. The reunion endured through two world wars and even continued during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, when so many other town traditions went dark.
Over the years, gatherings at Bass Park have hosted speakers of genuine consequence: a four-star general, a Harvard astronomy professor, a New Hampshire governor and a publisher of Yankee Magazine. Yet none of that is really the point.
The point is smaller and lovelier than any individual speaker – a small New England town of a few hundred people has chosen, year after year, to occupy the same ground together. Its residents continue to honor the compact made by earlier generations: that this shaded patch of land should remain a place for public gathering, conversation and shared enjoyment.
In 1867, Bazille painted his family beneath the trees in southern France. Twenty-four years later, a stand of pine trees in Sharon became Willard Bass Park, and neighbors continued to meet there each August, as they still do today.
Different countries, different decades, the same idea: that an ordinary afternoon spent in the company of others is worth rendering on canvas and worth returning to, year after year.
Amelia Clune is a writer, educator and gardener based in Nelson.