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Painting
What was Renoir’s style of painting?
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Pierre-Auguste Renoir was a prominent French artist and a leading figure of the Impressionist movement. Impressionism was a 19th-century art movement characterised by an accurate depiction of everyday life and objects, utilising freely brushed colours in opposition to the lines and contours preferred by academic painting.
Renoir’s paintings generally used loose and spontaneous brushstrokes and a vibrant colour palette to depict scenes from everyday life – including landscapes, portraits and still lifes – capturing the overall moment, impression and atmosphere of that scene rather than focusing on detailed precision. His early works heavily featured a more precise and detailed approach thanks to his training in traditional academic art. A good example is his 1867 work “Diana”, which portrayed the mythological goddess Diana (Artemis), demonstrating a much more traditional rendering of the scene and the human figure. He, however, completely embraced the Impressionist movement later in his life. The “Luncheon of the Boating Party” (1880-1881) and “Bal du moulin de la Galette” (1876) are considered Renoir’s most famous and iconic paintings, capturing the spirit of the Impressionist movement.
His works exuded a sense of joy and beauty in the world displayed in a more fluid and dreamlike quality, with an emphasis on capturing the essence of the subject rather than its precise details. This was noticeable in both his candid sceneries and portraits.