Ernesto Bazzaro studies at the Brera Academy in Milan.
He takes part in the Scapigliatura movement (a bohemian movement that brings together poets, journalists and painters), which aims to modernize Italian culture through foreign influences (German and French Romanticism, etc.).

He quickly made a name for himself in genre sculpture and cemetery monuments. His works were acclaimed in Italy and abroad and won numerous medals.

Bazzaro writes of his work: "What I seek," he says, "is to render as effectively as possible the impressions I receive from nature (...) it is in it that I feel and see all the power and grandeur of life (...) when I observe, it is not the thing that I want to represent: but life (...) and to obtain the intensity of this life".