Lot Essay
La Place Clichy directly relates to another painting of the same title from the same year, from the Butler Collection now in the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge (fig. 1).
Denys Sutton writes: "One of the most appealing pictures painted by Renoir in about 1880 is the famous Place Clichy in the collection of Mr R. A. Butler, which for a long time went under the title of La Place Pigalle. This picture is a charming record of a typical Parisian scene in which the spirit of a particular locality and of a moment in time is finely captured. It is a work which underlines the debt owed by the Impressionist School to instantaneous photography.
This desire to emphasise a fragment from life gives the picture its sketchy character, as if it were painted en plein air in front of this scene. The disregard for finish in favour of the instantaneous underlines the difference then existing between an avant-garde painter and the run of the mill recorders of the Parisian scene, who sought fidelity to detail and the anecdotic. Such is the sketchiness of this picture that it comes of something of a surprise to find that it was preceded by...(the present painting)...which is no less attractive than the finished painting...In the sketch the composition is indicated in a rather more cursory fashion and...Yet...as in the final work, the emphasis is placed on the girl in the feather hat who holds the centre of interest in the foreground of the composition. The artist's skill is evident from the way in which she is positioned; this brings out her individuality. She bounds into the picture so that we are made aware of her youth and the impression is thereby given that she is an especially charming creature who has captured the eye." (D. Sutton, "An unpublished sketch by Renoir", in Apollo, London, May 1963, p. 393)
The present work achieves its immediacy by virtue of its simplicity. The broadly drawn figures on the street seem to have been captured in the glimpse of an eye and the fact that the passers by have only been summarily painted reinforces the impact of the young girl at the lower right of the composition. The blues of her coat and the details of her hat contrast strongly against the luminous white of the background area, whilst their detail contrasts strongly with the broad treatment of her surroundings.
"The position of this sketch in the development of Renoir's composition is by no means clear...It could represent either a first idea for the whole picture or a variant...It might also suggest that he toyed with the idea of making another picture using this portion of the composition as the basis for the new one...In all probability one will never be able to solve this problem: in any event, the connexions between this group of pictures shed some light on the methods of a major Impressionist picture." (ibid.)
Denys Sutton writes: "One of the most appealing pictures painted by Renoir in about 1880 is the famous Place Clichy in the collection of Mr R. A. Butler, which for a long time went under the title of La Place Pigalle. This picture is a charming record of a typical Parisian scene in which the spirit of a particular locality and of a moment in time is finely captured. It is a work which underlines the debt owed by the Impressionist School to instantaneous photography.
This desire to emphasise a fragment from life gives the picture its sketchy character, as if it were painted en plein air in front of this scene. The disregard for finish in favour of the instantaneous underlines the difference then existing between an avant-garde painter and the run of the mill recorders of the Parisian scene, who sought fidelity to detail and the anecdotic. Such is the sketchiness of this picture that it comes of something of a surprise to find that it was preceded by...(the present painting)...which is no less attractive than the finished painting...In the sketch the composition is indicated in a rather more cursory fashion and...Yet...as in the final work, the emphasis is placed on the girl in the feather hat who holds the centre of interest in the foreground of the composition. The artist's skill is evident from the way in which she is positioned; this brings out her individuality. She bounds into the picture so that we are made aware of her youth and the impression is thereby given that she is an especially charming creature who has captured the eye." (D. Sutton, "An unpublished sketch by Renoir", in Apollo, London, May 1963, p. 393)
The present work achieves its immediacy by virtue of its simplicity. The broadly drawn figures on the street seem to have been captured in the glimpse of an eye and the fact that the passers by have only been summarily painted reinforces the impact of the young girl at the lower right of the composition. The blues of her coat and the details of her hat contrast strongly against the luminous white of the background area, whilst their detail contrasts strongly with the broad treatment of her surroundings.
"The position of this sketch in the development of Renoir's composition is by no means clear...It could represent either a first idea for the whole picture or a variant...It might also suggest that he toyed with the idea of making another picture using this portion of the composition as the basis for the new one...In all probability one will never be able to solve this problem: in any event, the connexions between this group of pictures shed some light on the methods of a major Impressionist picture." (ibid.)