Lot Essay
In 1869 Renoir spent the entire summer painting out of doors with Monet at La Grenouillière. Monet encouraged him to move towards a lighter and more luminous palette, using pastel grounds; and together they developed a light, assertive painterly technique which characterised both their styles in the early 1870s.
Renoir visited Monet at his rented home at Argenteuil frequently between 1872 and 1875. "On the banks of the Seine in the outskirts of the capital, Argenteuil at that period offered all the advantages of a suburb with a variety of open-air country motifs, but its main attraction for the painters was the broad river with sailing boats and picturesque bridges. Monet had rented a little house close to the water, and whenever Renoir came to stay with him they again put up their easels in front of the same views, studying the same motifs. They both now adopted a comma-like brushstroke even smaller than the one they had chosen for their works at Grenouillière, a brushstroke which permitted them to record every nuance they observed. The surfaces of their canvases were thus covered with a vibrating tissue of small dots and strokes, none of which by themselves defined any form. Yet they contribute to recreating the particular features of the chosen motif and especially the sunny air which bathed it, and marked trees, grass, houses, or water with the specific character of the day, if not the hour. Nature was no longer, as for the Barbizon painters, an object susceptible of interpretation, it became the direct source of pure sensations, reproduced by the technique of small dots and strokes which - instead of insisting on details - retained the general impression in all its richness of colour and life...Renoir often selected sun-drenched vistas with pronounced oppositions of light and shadow, as well as the inherent gay mood of light summer days - painted at high noon when the shadows were shortest..." (J. Rewald, The History of Impressionism, New York, 1963, pp. 281, 284-285).
The present work was created in the purest spirit of impressionist plein-airism. Its swift brushstrokes convey the impression of dense undergrowth without describing any specific detail. Tiny dabs and dashes build up the foliage in the centre with longer flourishes in the foreground. The river and the houses on its opposite banks are barely visible through the foliage. Renoir concentrates on rendering the fugitive effects of light on this overgrown bank, dappling the greenery with dabs of paint in the palest of hues. The entire picture surface is alive with a rich but subtle medley of colours ranging from the lightest of greens and yellows through to dark browns, they melt into one another from a distance, creating a shimmering, fleeting effect. Describing his own brand of plein-airism Renoir wrote, "Methods and techniques...are not taught...One learns them by searching. Nothing should be painted in a similar manner. Some things in a canvas gain by being sketched and left to the imagination. It is a matter of feeling." (R. Huyghe, Impressionism, London, 1981, p. 96).
To be included in a forthcoming volume of the Pierre Auguste Renoir catalogue raisonné currently being prepared by François Daulte
Renoir visited Monet at his rented home at Argenteuil frequently between 1872 and 1875. "On the banks of the Seine in the outskirts of the capital, Argenteuil at that period offered all the advantages of a suburb with a variety of open-air country motifs, but its main attraction for the painters was the broad river with sailing boats and picturesque bridges. Monet had rented a little house close to the water, and whenever Renoir came to stay with him they again put up their easels in front of the same views, studying the same motifs. They both now adopted a comma-like brushstroke even smaller than the one they had chosen for their works at Grenouillière, a brushstroke which permitted them to record every nuance they observed. The surfaces of their canvases were thus covered with a vibrating tissue of small dots and strokes, none of which by themselves defined any form. Yet they contribute to recreating the particular features of the chosen motif and especially the sunny air which bathed it, and marked trees, grass, houses, or water with the specific character of the day, if not the hour. Nature was no longer, as for the Barbizon painters, an object susceptible of interpretation, it became the direct source of pure sensations, reproduced by the technique of small dots and strokes which - instead of insisting on details - retained the general impression in all its richness of colour and life...Renoir often selected sun-drenched vistas with pronounced oppositions of light and shadow, as well as the inherent gay mood of light summer days - painted at high noon when the shadows were shortest..." (J. Rewald, The History of Impressionism, New York, 1963, pp. 281, 284-285).
The present work was created in the purest spirit of impressionist plein-airism. Its swift brushstrokes convey the impression of dense undergrowth without describing any specific detail. Tiny dabs and dashes build up the foliage in the centre with longer flourishes in the foreground. The river and the houses on its opposite banks are barely visible through the foliage. Renoir concentrates on rendering the fugitive effects of light on this overgrown bank, dappling the greenery with dabs of paint in the palest of hues. The entire picture surface is alive with a rich but subtle medley of colours ranging from the lightest of greens and yellows through to dark browns, they melt into one another from a distance, creating a shimmering, fleeting effect. Describing his own brand of plein-airism Renoir wrote, "Methods and techniques...are not taught...One learns them by searching. Nothing should be painted in a similar manner. Some things in a canvas gain by being sketched and left to the imagination. It is a matter of feeling." (R. Huyghe, Impressionism, London, 1981, p. 96).
To be included in a forthcoming volume of the Pierre Auguste Renoir catalogue raisonné currently being prepared by François Daulte