Pierre-Auguste Renoir - La Promenade (Art Ebook).pdf

John House, "Pierre-Auguste Renoir: La Promenade"
1997 | English | PDF | 94 pages | 14.9 Mb

To late-twentieth-century eyes, Pierre-Auguste Renoir’s La Promenade raises few questions and poses few problems; indeed, little has been written about the picture, despite its regular appearance in exhibitions and the Renoir literature. This study of the work reveals surprising details about the artistic, historical, and moral contexts in which the painting was created.

John House, the author of this fascinating monograph, examines the many facets of the work and what it reveals about Renoir as a man and artist. He asks, “What did it mean to paint a picture like La Promenade in France in 1870, in the final months of Napoleon III’s Second Empire?” The reader is invited to look at the canvas—and Impressionism—as a rejection of the idealist world of academic art and as a challenge to contemporary social norms.