Renoir Dance at le Moulin de la Galette

Dance at le Moulin de la Galette, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, 1876. Bal du Moulin de la Galette is one of Impressionism's most celebrated masterpieces. The painting depicts a typical Sunday afternoon at the original Moulin de la Galette in the district of Montmartre in Paris. In the late 19th century, working class Parisians would dress up and spend time there dancing, drinking, and eating galettes into the evening. Like other works of Renoir's early maturity, Bal du moulin de la Galette is a typically Impressionist snapshot of real life. It shows a richness of form, a fluidity of brush stroke, and a flickering, sun-dappled light. Renoir conceived his project of painting the dancing at Le Moulin de la Galette in May 1876. Renoir set up a studio near the mill at an abandoned cottage in the rue Cortot with a garden. Manyof Renoir's major works were painted in this garden at this time. Renoir distributed a sought after fashionable hat of the time amongst his models (the straw bonnet with a wide red ribbon top right is an example of this hat, called a timbale). He was unable to persuade his favourite sixteen-year-old model Jeanne Samary to pose as principal for the painting and it is her sister Estelle who poses as the girl wearing a blue and pink striped dress. These two girls came to Le Moulin every Sunday properly chaperoned by their mother (entry was free for girls at Le Moulin and not all were models of virtue). Beside her is a group consisting of Pierre-Franc Lamy and Norbert Goeneutte, fellow painters. Behind her, amongst the dancers, are to be found Henri Gervex, Eugène Pierre Lestringuez and Paul Lhote (who appears in Dance in the Country). In the middle distance, in the middle of the dance hall, the Cuban painter Don Pedro Vidal de Solares y Cardenas is depicted in striped trousers dancing with the model called Margot (Marguerite Legrand). Apparently the exuberant Margot found Solares too reserved and was endeavoring to loosen him up by dancing polkas with him and teaching him dubious songs in the local slang. She was to die of typhoid just two years later, Renoir nursing her until the end, paying both for her treatment and her funeral. The painting, however, was executed on the spot and not without difficulty as the wind constantly threatened to blow the canvas away. Pierre-Auguste Renoir, 1841–1919, was a leading painter in the development of the Impressionist style. As a celebrator of beauty and especially feminine sensuality, it has been said that "Renoir is the final representative of a tradition which runs directly from Rubens to Watteau. He was the father of actor Pierre Renoir (1885–1952), filmmaker Jean Renoir (1894–1979) and ceramic artist Claude Renoir (1901–1969). He was the grandfather of the filmmaker Claude Renoir (1913–1993), son of Pierre. This painting can be admired at the Musee d'Orsay in Paris, France. As for Paris... what can one say about the City of Light that has not already been said...? More amazing paintings one copy-paste away at my gallery at https://weston-westmoreland.pixels.com/collections/paintings More views of Paris one copy-paste away in my Gallery at http://westonwestmoreland.com/collections/paris Weston Westmoreland

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