The second major work skilfully unites friends and models by their gestures and glances: the famous "Boating party luncheon". At the front left Aline Charigot, Renoir's future wife, plays with her small dog. All is enjoyment on a perfect Sunday afternoon:
Renoir bathes his people in light and colour. In a work painted in his studio garden in Montmartre, he portrays a flirting couple, the young lady standing next to a swing. A little girl looks on in admiration. Renoir paints the sunlight dappling through blue tinted shadows:
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| La balançoire (The swing) 1876 Musée d'Orsay |
Renoir had memories of 18th century paintings by Watteau, or Boucher in mind, the kind of subject he reproduced on porcelain when he was an apprentice in a Parisian porcelain factory- his first job. The pose here is modest, unlike the famous "Swing" by Fragonard where frilly underclothes and a glimpse of leg are revealed.
In the work below, the subject almost dissolves in the sunlight, causing a contemporary critic to compare the soft graceful nude to a piece of rotting flesh!
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| Etude/ Torse de femme au soleil (Study/ Female torso in sunlight) 1875 |
Like the "Moulin de la Galette", the above nude was part of the Caillebotte legacy to the Louvre and both are to be found in the Musée d'Orsay. Several works have been loaned from the United States, London and elsewhere.
It is a pleasure to see Renoir's three dancing couples in the same room, two from the Orsay and the third from Boston. It was about this time, in the early 1880s, that Renoir was feeling dissatisfied with Impressionism and started painting in a more graphic hard-edged style- the period know as his Ingresque period.
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| Danse à Bougival (Dancing in Bougival) 1883 Museum of Fine Arts, Boston |
Renoir captures the joie de vivre of such weekend festivities. His short-sighted friend Paul Lhote was happy to oblige as a dance partner. Almost like a mirror image of the above, the country dance has Aline as a model, with whom Renoir was in love:
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Danse à la campagne (Dancing in the country) 1883 Musee d'Orsay
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Aline seems to be gazing out at the artist, indicating perhaps that she would rather be dancing with him..
In the more sophisticated "Dancing in Town", model Suzanne Valadon wears a ball gown with a train, while the man wears white gloves. His face is purposely obscured, so that any man observing the painting might imagine himself in the role. The lady's dress is a glorious composition of colours which render the shimmering white satin:
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| Danse à la ville (Dancing in town) 1883 Musée d'Orsay |
Renoir loved to paint happy pictures. As he himself said "There are enough unpleasant things in the world- I make no excuses for painting pretty scenes." Unlike say Degas, Renoir was not the aloof observer of a scene, he always wanted to be part of the crowd, in communion with other people, according to his son, Jean. "There's no art without life" said Renoir. Before he met Aline, Renoir had various girlfriends, usually his models. Lise Tréhot figures in around twenty of his works. In the modest scene of seduction below, Lise is enticed into the woods by his younger brother Edmond who often acted as a model:
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| La Promenade (The Walk) 1870 Los Angeles, J.Paul Getty Museum |
Lise had two children by Renoir, who kept the fact a secret. He did not paint many self portraits. As a young man he was thin and wiry, extremely likeable, with friends on both sides during the Paris Commune revolution of 1871.
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| Self portrait ca 1875 Williamstown, Clark Art Institute |
The above self portrait, painted when Renoir was 35 shows an artist who at the time was struggling for recognition. His emaciated face and tousled hair present a sharp contrast to the carefree scenes he was painting. Renoir said " I am in love with the sun and reflections in water, and to paint them I would travel round the world":
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| La Yole (The skiff) 1875 London, The National Gallery |
To quote Renoir's son Jean- "He lived in the present, giving it a value of eternity". His scenes capture a precious moment- for example the young girl 's first outing to the theatre. She is leaning forward in anticipation, clutching her bouquet of flowers against a background of moving spectators:
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| Au theatre (La Premiere Sortie) 1876-77 London, The National Gallery |
Renoir painted tender pictures of children, not only his own three sons with Aline, but the children of his patrons, for example the sons and daughters of Durand-Ruel his art dealer. Renoir's portrait of the daughters adapts the figures to their outdoor background in a riot of colour reflected in their white dresses and linking them together by the younger girl's gesture:
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Les Filles de Paul Durand-Ruel, Marie-Therese et Jeanne
(The daughters of Paul Durand-Ruel,
Marie-Therese and Jeanne) 1882 Norfolk, Virginia,
Chrysler Museum of Art |
When Renoir married Aline and had his second son -Jean- in 1894, who was to become the famous film director, he employed a distant cousin of Aline's to look after him. Gabrielle became a favourite model of Renoir's. The two figures are portrayed with tenderness, engrossed in play:
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| Gabrielle et Jean ca 1895-6 Musée de l'Orangerie, Paris |
This work is in the second exhibition in the Orsay, dedicated to Renoir's graphic work. Fellow artist and friend Berthe Morisot remarked in 1896 after visiting his studio that "Renoir is a first rate draughtsman", unlike the public's preconceptions of Impressionist painters. Renoir's drawings were first exhibited by art dealer Ambroise Vollard in 1912. He used different media:
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Gabrielle et Jean ca 1895 black crayon on paper Ottawa,
Musée des Beaux Arts du Canada |
Jean Renoir commented that his father never let a single day go by without sketching something.
There are many exquisite pastels and water colours in this second exhibition. Renoir excelled at pastel drawing. The following pastel portrait of his life-long friend Paul Cezanne was copied in oils by Cezanne himself:
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| Paul Cezanne 1880 pastel on paper Private Collection |
Below, Renoir captures the fresh features of a young woman, using oil and water colour:
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Jeune femme au chapeau noir (Young woman with black hat) ca 1880-5
oil and water colour on paper Lille, Palais des Beaux Arts |
For his large paintings of nudes at the end of his life, Renoir made lots of studies. A large red chalk drawing was admired and acquired by Picasso:
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Etude pour La Coiffure (Study for The Coiffure)
1900-1 Picasso Museum, Paris |
His palpable nudes took him right back perhaps to one of the first works that inspired him as a youth: the Renaissance Fountain of the Innocents in the Halles district in Paris (still there).
Renoir was drawn to sculpture and modelled several nudes in clay, helped by the hands of Richard Guino since he himself was paralysed by arthritis. The main exhibition opens with his statue of Venus Victorious:
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Venus Victrix by Renoir and Guino 1914-16 Musée d'Orsay
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Having preferred to paint modern life, Renoir returns here to mythology, but with the characteristic robust forms he liked. Both exhibitions are a celebration of life and love.
Renoir et L'Amour La Modernité Heureuse (1865-1885) is on from March 17th
until July 19th, 2026.
Renoir Dessinateur (Renoir the draughtsman) lasts until the 5th of July only.
Both are at the Musée d'Orsay, 1 rue de la Légion d'Honneur, 75007 Paris.
Metro and RER: Musée d'Orsay
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