WEEK 9: The exceptional light of Pierre-Auguste Renoir

Le Moulin de la galette 1876 by Pierre-Auguste Lenoir 4'3 1/2" * 5'9"  Musee d'Orsay, Paris

This painting is the representation of a party going on in the 19th century. People are in France, entertainning in the neigbourhood of Monmartre in Paris, on a Sunday afternoon. Closest to us are women conversing, men drinking and smoking. In the background, there are dancers, a couple particularly on the left attract our attention because it is a little apart from the other dancers. There is a crowd dancing, visiting, going to a cafe in the back. There are trees all around them that create an atmosphere of happiness and calmness by playing with the sunlight.

This painting was one of Renoir's happiest work of art. It also is the first painting in which with see this kind of light. Indeed, Renoir tried reflecting a dancing light, as we found it aroudn us, in nature. Before him, light was always represented as still, which was not the case out of the painting. Also, depending on the intensity of the light, objects were not always clear as they are in most painting. Especially with shadow, forms become more blurry, as if in a dream. Indeed, Renoir had to invent a new technique of paintign to express all these sensations provided by the light around us. And that is how impressionism was born. For the first time, a painting could capture and transmitt the sensations of perception. As in here, Renoir used his full Impressionist technique to create a work as in a picture: it captured a moment in time, with its emotions: there is color, movement and light surrounding us as viewers as if we were part of this scene, looking at it outside of the window or just contemplating the joy of this scene, drinking a wine of good glass and enjoying the sun and the company of others. This personally is one of my favortie painting. It express so much in an instant, transport us among these people that are happy, enjoying life and not worrying about a thing. The work of the artist is fully accomplished because it brings happiness and hope of happiness in a world that has became more and more complicated with less and less simple pleasures. This painting, throughout time, reminds us that there is happiness in this world, right by our door, everywhere and anywhere.

The new relationship of the figures, the tonal co- ordination, and especially the projection of the dancers to an impressive scale marks a decided ad- vance over the earlier compositions. Yet a spiritualaffinity binds the three celebrated painting,[...].

Title: A Great Renoir
Author(s): James S. Plaut
Source: Bulletin of the Museum of Fine Arts, Vol. 35, No. 209 (Jun., 1937), pp. 30-33