Pierre Auguste Renoir

Sentier dans le bois

[Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, Massachusetts - Oil on canvas, 41 x 33 cm]

Luncheon of the Boating Party by Pierre-Auguste Renoir remains the best known and most popular work of art at The Phillips Collection, just as Duncan Phillips imagined it would be when he bought it in 1923. The painting captures an idyllic atmosphere as Renoir's friends share food, wine, and conversation on a balcony overlooking the Seine at the Maison Fournaise restaurant in Chatou. Parisians flocked to the Maison Fournaise to rent rowing skiffs, eat a good meal, or stay the night. The…

Renoir was one of the leading painters of the Impressionist group. He evolved a technique of broken brushstrokes and used bold combinations of pure complementary colours, to capture the light and movement of his landscapes and figure subjects. Following a visit to Italy in 1881 his style changed, becoming more linear and classical.

After a series of rejections by the conservative Salon de Paris, Renoir and a group of like-minded artists (including Claude Monet, Edouard Manet, Edgar Degas, Paul Cezanne and Camille Pissarro) formed the Anonymous Society of Painters, Sculptors and Engravers, later known as the Impressionists."u2026

Pierre-Auguste Renoir 1841-1919 combined the traditions of the outdoor pleasure scenes of Watteau and the Classical nude with the progressive aesthetic of...