Lot Essay
A photo-certificate from François Daulte dated Lausanne, June 30, 1988 accompanies this painting, which will be included in the forthcoming volume II (Figures, 1891-1905) of his Renoir catalogue raisonné.
Renoir made paintings of young women posed in gardens throughout his career, but he achieved a new ideal in these works after circa 1890. Before then, Renoir tended to work within the conventions of Impressionism, rendering these scenes as images of contemporary leisure. But in the 1890s, the artist abandoned this emphasis on modern life, seeking instead to create paintings of timeless beauty. Renoir effected this change at the level of style, not subject matter: as before, he generally represented the figures in contemporary clothing and modern settings, but now his warm palette and swirling brushwork evoked the fantastic dream world of Fragonard and Boucher, artists whom Renoir adored.
Ultimately, these images are visions of the locus amoenus, the paradisiacal garden or retreat that fosters reflection and repose, love and creativity--a world of eternal springtime populated (mostly) by young women. Since remotest antiquity, this Arcadian ideal has served as a source of inspiration for literature and the visual arts, and often, as here, there is a retrospective and nostalgic character to the works. During the final decades of his life, Renoir dedicated a considerable measure of his creative energy to variations on this theme. The range of his works colored by this ideal is extraordinary--from relatively realistic pictures of the gardens behind Renoir's house to a classicizing and idealized portrait of twelve-year old Alexander Thurneyssen as a bucolic shepherd (Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design). The present painting, with its radiant light and diffuse brushwork, is an excellent example of this development in Renoir's style.
Renoir made paintings of young women posed in gardens throughout his career, but he achieved a new ideal in these works after circa 1890. Before then, Renoir tended to work within the conventions of Impressionism, rendering these scenes as images of contemporary leisure. But in the 1890s, the artist abandoned this emphasis on modern life, seeking instead to create paintings of timeless beauty. Renoir effected this change at the level of style, not subject matter: as before, he generally represented the figures in contemporary clothing and modern settings, but now his warm palette and swirling brushwork evoked the fantastic dream world of Fragonard and Boucher, artists whom Renoir adored.
Ultimately, these images are visions of the locus amoenus, the paradisiacal garden or retreat that fosters reflection and repose, love and creativity--a world of eternal springtime populated (mostly) by young women. Since remotest antiquity, this Arcadian ideal has served as a source of inspiration for literature and the visual arts, and often, as here, there is a retrospective and nostalgic character to the works. During the final decades of his life, Renoir dedicated a considerable measure of his creative energy to variations on this theme. The range of his works colored by this ideal is extraordinary--from relatively realistic pictures of the gardens behind Renoir's house to a classicizing and idealized portrait of twelve-year old Alexander Thurneyssen as a bucolic shepherd (Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design). The present painting, with its radiant light and diffuse brushwork, is an excellent example of this development in Renoir's style.