Famed for his paintings of bustling 19th-century Parisian life, pretty women and sensual nudes, Pierre-Auguste Renoir’s eye for beauty captured the day’s fashions and scenes of contented domestic bliss.
Luncheon of the Boating Party by Pierre-Auguste Renoir
Celebrated as a colorist, Renoir (1841 – 1919) was masterful at capturing the interplay of light and shadow as seen in the dappled sunlight of dancers at the Moulin de la Galette.
In the 19th century, Le Moulin de la Galette was a pleasant diversion for Parisians seeking entertainment, a glass of wine and bread made from flour ground by the famous windmill of the same name.
Bal du moulin de la Galette by Pierre-Auguste Renoir
Why shouldn’t art be pretty? There are enough unpleasant things in the world.Pierre Auguste Renoir
Click here to learn more about Pierre-Auguste Renoir
Painting for two months in the summer of 1869 at a boating and bathing complex outside Paris called La Grenouillère, Renoir and his friend Claude Monet captured the effects of the sun streaming through the trees on the rippling water.
La Grenouillere by Pierre Auguste Renoir, 1869
Using broad, loose brushstrokes in a sketch-like technique and a brightened palette, they developed what would become known as the Impressionist aesthetic.
Although a founding member of the Impressionist movement, Renoir ceased to exhibit after 1877.
His love of portraiture and images of well-dressed Parisian pleasure seekers created a bridge from Impressionism’s more experimental aims to a modern, middle-class art public.
The Cafe by Pierre Auguste Renoir, 1877
On a trip to Italy in 1881, Renoir became enamored with the “grandeur and simplicity” of High Renaissance artists like Raphael and his figures consequently became more crisply drawn and sculptural in character.
The Artist’s Family by Pierre-Auguste Renoir, 1896
Integrating more line and composition into his more mature works, Renoir created some of his era’s most timeless canvases.
Dance at Bougival by Pierre-Auguste Renoir, 1883
Painting dozens of nudes, Renoir specialized in marble-like figures against quickly improvised impressionistic backgrounds.
Bather by Pierre Auguste Renoir, 1893
Renoir’s combination of modernity and tradition was highly influential on the next generation of artists including Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, and Maurice Denis.
Join us as we celebrate Renoir accompanied by the music of Chopin.
Young Girls at the Piano by Pierre-Auguste Renoir, 1892
Woman with a Parasol in a Garden by Pierre Auguste Renoir, 1873
The Two Sisters, On the Terrace by Pierre-Auguste Renoir
Picking Flowers by Pierre Auguste Renoir, 1875
Young Woman with a Japanese Umbrella by Pierre Auguste Renoir, 1876
Place de la Trinite, Paris by Pierre Auguste Renoir, 1875
At the Concert by Pierre Auguste Renoir, 1880
Claude Monet Painting in His Garden at Argenteuil by Pierre Auguste Renoir, 1873
Bougival by Pierre Auguste Renoir, 1888
The Swing by Pierre-Auguste Renoir, 1876
Cagnes Landscape by Pierre Auguste Renoir, 1910
Noirmoutiers by Pierre Auguste Renoir, 1892
Woman with a Black Dog by Pierre Auguste Renoir, 1874
The Port of Pornic by Pierre Auguste Renoir, 1890
Sunny Landscape by Pierre Auguste Renoir, 1880
The Harvesters by Pierre Auguste Renoir, 1873
The Covered Lane by Pierre Auguste Renoir, 1872
The Children of Martial Caillebotte by Pierre Auguste Renoir, 1895
Geraniums in a Copper Basin by Pierre Auguste Renoir, 1880
Landscape at Cagnes by Pierre Auguste Renoir, 1908
Le Pont-Neuf, Paris by Pierre Auguste Renoir, 1872
The Theater Box by Pierre-Auguste Renoir, 1874
The Farm by Pierre Auguste Renoir, 1914
Basket of Flowers by Pierre Auguste Renoir – 1890
The Lovers by Pierre Auguste Renoir, 1875
Chapel of Our Lady of Protection, Cagnes by Pierre Auguste Renoir, 1905
A Cup of Tea in the Garden by Pierre Auguste Renoir, 1907
Houses at Cagnes by Pierre Auguste Renoir, 1905
The Fountain by Pierre Auguste Renoir, 1885
Chrysanthemums by Pierre Auguste Renoir, 1878
Among the Roses by Pierre Auguste Renoir, 1882
Flowers in a Vase by Pierre Auguste Renoir, 1866
Cagnes Landscape with Woman and Child by Pierre Auguste Renoir, 1910
The Fisherman by Pierre Auguste Renoir, 1874
Girls with Lilacs by Pierre Auguste Renoir, 1890
The Great Boulevards by Pierre Auguste Renoir, 1875
The Terrace at Cagnes by Pierre Auguste Renoir, 1908
Country Dance by Pierre Auguste Renoir, 1883
Bouquet of Flowers by Pierre Auguste Renoir, 1878
The Canoeist’s Luncheon by Pierre Auguste Renoir, 1880
Head of a Little Girl by Pierre Auguste Renoir, 1900
Oarsmen at Chatou by Pierre Auguste Renoir, 1879
Madame Chocquet Reading by Pierre Auguste Renoir, 1876
Girl Gathering Flowers by Pierre Auguste Renoir, 1872
The Seine at Chatou by Pierre Auguste Renoir, 1881
Spring Bouquet by Pierre Auguste Renoir, 1866
Algerian Landscape by Pierre Auguste Renoir
The Piazza San Marco, Venice by Pierre Auguste Renoir, 1881
Place de la Trinite by Pierre Auguste Renoir, 1875
The Seine at Asnieres by Pierre Auguste Renoir, 1879
Vase of Chrysanthemums by Pierre Auguste Renoir, 1882
Garden Scene in Brittany by Pierre Auguste Renoir, 1886
Young Woman in Red in the Fields by Pierre Auguste Renoir, 1900
Madame Renoir and Her Son Pierre by Pierre Auguste Renoir, 1890
Under the Arbor at the Moulin de la Galette by Pierre Auguste Renoir, 1876
In St Cloud Park by Pierre Auguste Renoir, 1866
Girl with a Watering Can by Pierre Auguste Renoir, 1876
Children by the Sea by Pierre Auguste Renoir – 1894
Nini in the Garden by Pierre Auguste Renoir, 1876
Mlle Charlotte Berthier by Pierre Auguste Renoir, 1883
Charles Courtney Curran was an American artist best known for paintings of Victorian and Edwardian women in graceful flowing dresses set against expansive romantic landscapes.
Many American artists spent time in Paris in the 19th century, and Curran was no exception. Paris was the center of the art world. To experience Paris was considered essential to American artists with a dream—a dream to excel at what they loved to do.
It’s not difficult to see the influence of French Impressionists like Monet
The Promenade, Woman with a Parasol by Claude Monet , 1875
His paintings are compared with fellow American Impressionists who also spent time in Paris—Mary Cassatt, Edmund Charles Tarbell, and Frank Weston Benson. And it’s not difficult to see the influence of French Impressionists like Monet—especially works like The Promenade, Woman with a Parasol (1875).
Key Facts about Charles Courtney Curran
1500 works in his career, mostly oil paintings, some watercolors and illustrations for magazines.
Born in Hartford, Kentucky in 1861 but grew up on the shores of Lake Erie, Ohio.
One of the greatest American Impressionist painters, Frederick Childe Hassam produced over 3000 works in oil, watercolor, etchings, and lithographs.
Pronounced “child HASS’m”, he demonstrated a talent for drawing and watercolor while at primary school.
Childe Hassam illustration for St Nicholas Children’s magazine
At 17, he turned down an offer from his uncle to pay for a Harvard education in favor of working as a wood engraver.
Proving to be a proficient draftsman, he produced engravings for letterheads and newspapers before becoming a freelance illustrator with his own studio.
Read more …
Specializing in illustrations for children’s stories in magazines such as Harper’s Weekly and Scribner’s Monthly, he held his first solo exhibition in Boston in 1883.
Advised by a friend at the Boston Art Club, he took a two-month “study trip” to Europe in the summer of 1883.
Forming the basis of his next exhibition in 1884 were 67 watercolors from his trip to Europe.
Influenced by the Barbizon school—an art movement for Realism in the context of the Romantic Movement—Hassam focused on the use of atmosphere and light in his landscapes.
Look around you and paint what you see … render the intense life which surrounds you.
Church Procession, Spanish Steps by Frederick Childe Hassam – circa 1883
Taking to heart the words of a noted Boston critic “very pleasant, but not art”, in 1886 Hassam returned to Europe with his wife, settling in a studio in Paris at the center of the art community.
the Julian academy is the personification of routine … crushing all originality out of growing men. It tends to put them in a rut and it keeps them in it.
Using an innovative change of palette, Hassam painted two versions of Grand Prix Day in 1887. Inspired by the work of French Impressionists, he painted softer, more diffuse colors, full of light, with free brush strokes.
Grand Prix Day by Frederick Childe Hassam – 1887-1888Grand Prix Day by Frederick Childe Hassam – 1887
The completed works garnered attention back home in Boston, with one critic writing,
It is refreshing to note that Mr. Hassam, in the midst of so many good, bad, and indifferent art currents, seems to be paddling his own canoe with a good deal of independence and method. When his Boston pictures of three years ago…are compared with the more recent work…it may be seen how he has progressed.
Exhibiting four paintings at the Exposition Universelle of 1889 in Paris, he won a bronze medal, then moved back to the States to take up residence on New York’s Fifth Avenue, painting the genteel neighborhoods within walking distance of his apartment.
View of Broadway and Fifth Avenue by Frederick Childe Hassam – 1890
Spring Morning In The Heart Of The City by Childe Hassam, 1890
New York is the most beautiful city in the world. There is no boulevard in all Paris that compares to our own Fifth Avenue … the average American still fails to appreciate the beauty of his own country.
Hassam’s career went from strength to strength, earning him as much as $6000 per painting in 1909 (equivalent to roughly $160,000 today).
As New York’s architecture changed, with skyscrapers supplanting stately mansions, Hassam lamented a simpler time when gracious horse-drawn carriages ferried people up and down Fifth Avenue.
Fifth Avenue In Winter by Childe Hassam, 1919
He tired of the bustling subways, elevated trains, and motor buses, and traveled to Oregon, with its high desert, mountains , and rugged coastline.
Ecola Beach, Oregon by Frederick Childe Hassam – 1904
In later life, Hassam produced some of his most distinctive paintings. Inspired by America’s involvement in World War One, he painted the “Flag series” in 1916. Being an avid Francophile, so enthusiastically did he embrace the war effort to help protect French culture that he even volunteered to record the war in Europe, but was declined.
Avenue of the Allies by Frederick Childe Hassam – 1918
Chosen by Barack Obama to hang in the Oval Office, the Avenue in the Rain is Hassam’s most famous work from the Flag series. As though viewing through a rain-smeared window, Hassam’s broad brushstrokes make a patriotic statement without overt reference to parades or war.
The Avenue in the Rain bu Childe Hassam, 1917
In his final years, he received a Gold Medal of Honor for lifetime achievement among other awards. However, for denouncing the avant-garde modern art trends of Cubism and Surrealism, some critics viewed him as static and repetitive.
He died peacefully in East Hampton at the age of 75, his legacy, an “abandoned genius” from a bygone time.
In the 1960s and 70s, the resurgence of interest in Impressionism saw his work fetch stratospheric prices.
Home Sweet Home Cottage, East Hampton by Frederick Childe Hassam – circa 1916
More beautiful paintings from Childe Hassam
Lady in Flower Garden by Frederick Childe Hassam – circa 1891
Woman with a Parasol in a Park by Frederick Childe Hassam – 1891
Lady in the Garden by Frederick Childe Hassam – 1897
The White Dory by Frederick Childe Hassam – 1895
Rainy Day, Paris by Frederick Childe Hassam – 1893
July Night by Frederick Childe Hassam – 1898
Sunday Morning by Frederick Childe Hassam – circa 1897
Morning Light by Frederick Childe Hassam – 1914
Fire Opals by Frederick Childe Hassam – 1912
Lilies by Frederick Childe Hassam – 1910
Bleak House, Broadstairs by Frederick Childe Hassam
Ten Pound Island by Frederick Childe Hassam – 1896
In Central Park by Frederick Childe Hassam – 1898
Parc Monceau, Paris by Frederick Childe Hassam – circa 1887-1895
Conversation on the Avenue by Frederick Childe Hassam – circa 1892
The Sea by Frederick Childe Hassam – 1892
Promenade at Sunset, Paris by Frederick Childe Hassam – 1888-1889
New York Street Scene by Frederick Childe Hassam – circa 1890
Evelyn Benedict at the Isles of Shoals by Frederick Childe Hassam – 1890
Twilight by Frederick Childe Hassam – circa 1888
Peonies by Frederick Childe Hassam – 1888
On the Balcony by Frederick Childe Hassam – 1888
In the Luxembourg Gardens by Frederick Childe Hassam – 1888
In the Sun by Frederick Childe Hassam – 1888
Mrs. Hassam at Villiers-le-Bel by Frederick Childe Hassam – 1888
Mrs. Hassam in the Garden by Frederick Childe Hassam – 1888
Spring (also known as The Artist’s Sister) by Frederick Childe Hassam – 1885
After Breakfast by Frederick Childe Hassam – 1887
Feeding Pigeons in the Piazza by Frederick Childe Hassam – circa 1883
Improvisation by Childe Hassam, 1899
Summer Sunlight (Isles of Shoals) by Childe Hassam, 1892
In 1894, famed art critic Gustave Geffroy described Berthe Morisot, Marie Bracquemond, and Mary Cassatt as “les trois grandes dames” (the three great ladies) of the Impressionist movement.
Born into a wealthy bourgeois family from Bourges, France, Berthe Morisot learnt how to paint at an early age, having private lessons along with her sisters.
As art students, Berthe and her sister Edma would spend hours in the Louvre copying the great works.
Regarded as a “virtuoso colorist”, Berthe created a sense of space and depth with color, painting what she saw and experienced in everyday life. But there is a message in her work—one that tells a story of the class and gender restrictions of the 19th century.
Focusing on family life, her portraits often feature her own daughter, Julie, from her marriage to Édouard Manet’s brother, Eugène.
Portrait of Julie (Berthe’s daughter) by Berthe Morisot, 1889
Behind the Blinds by Berthe Morisot, 1879
Lilacs at Maurecourt by Berthe Morisot, 1874Hide and Seek by Berthe Morisot, 1873
On a Bench by Berthe Morisot, 1889
Woman and Child on a Balcony by Berthe Morisot, 1872
Studying the Violin by Berthe Morisot, 1893
The Pink Dress by Berthe Morisot, c.1870
Young Girl with a Bird by Berthe Morisot, 1891
Young Woman Watering a Shrub by Berthe Morisot, 1876
The Lake in the Bois de Boulogne by Berthe Morisot, 1879Eugene Manet and His Daughter in the Garden by Berthe Morisot, 1883Young Girl with Doll by Berthe Morisot, 1884
Woman Wearing Gloves ny Berthe Morisot, 1885
On the Veranda by Berthe Morisot, 1884
On the Lake by Berthe Morisot, 1884
Doll on a Porch by Berthe Morisot, 1884
Young Girl with Doll by Berthe Morisot, 1883
The Fable by Berthe Morisot, 1883On the Balcony of Eugene Manet’s Room at Bougival by Berthe Morisot, 1881
Young Woman Picking Oranges by Berthe Morisot, 1889
Pasie Sewing in the Garden by Berthe Morisot, 1882
Young Woman and Child, Avenue du Bois by Berthe Morisot, 1894
Camille Pissarro (1830 – 1903) loved to paint rural scenes from nature.
He loved to express the beauty and truth of nature as it exists in its purest form without adulteration.
Preferring to finish paintings outdoors “en plein air” in a single sitting, it gave his work a more realistic feel.
This is how he explained his technique of painting to a student:
“Work at the same time upon sky, water, branches, ground, keeping everything going on an equal basis and unceasingly rework until you have got it. Paint generously and unhesitatingly, for it is best not to lose the first impression.”
Blossoming trees, light reflections in water, flowering gardens, and village life—Pissarro captured the mood of changing seasons and times of day.
Let Pissarro lift your mood—simply scroll and enjoy!
Apple Trees, Sunset, Eragny by Camille Pissarro, 1896
The Banks of the Oise by Camille Pissarro, 1877
Morning, Sun Effect, Eragny by Camille Pissarro, 1899
Morning, Autumn Sunlight, Eragny by Camille Pissarro, 1900
Spring Morning, Cloudy, Eragny by Camille Pissarro, 1900
Vegetable Garden in Eragny, Morning by Camille Pissarro, 1901
Road along the Loing canal by Camille Pissarro
Fields by Camille Pissarro, 1877
Les mathurins, Pontoise by Camille Pissarro, 1877
The Garden at Pontoise by Camille Pissarro, 1877
The Vegetable Garden with Trees in Blossom, Spring, Pontoise by Camille Pissarro, 1877
Resting in the woods Pontoise by Camille Pissarro, 1878
A Path in the Woods, Pontoise by Camille Pissarro, 1879
A Street in Pontoise by Camille Pissarro, 1879
Cottages at Auvers, near Pontoise by Camille Pissarro, 1879
A Street in Auvers (Thatched Cottage and Cow) by Camille Pissarro, 1880
Landscape at Chaponval by Camille Pissarro, 1880
Le Valhermeil, near Pontoise by Camille Pissarro, 1880
Sunset at Valhermeil, near Pontoise by Camille Pissarro, 1880
Kitchen Gardens, Pontoise by Camille Pissarro, 1881
View Towards Pontoise Prison, in Spring by Camille Pissarro, 1881
The Snack, Child and Young peasant at Rest by Camille Pissarro, 1882
Young Woman and Child at the Well by Camille Pissarro, 1882
Landscape at Osny near watering by Camille Pissarro, 1883
Little Bridge on the Voisne, Osny by Camille Pissarro, 1883
View of a Farm in Osny by Camille Pissarro, 1883
A Servant Seated in the Garden at Eragny by Camille Pissarro, 1884
Old Houses at Eragny by Camille Pissarro, 1884
Apple Trees in Flower, Eragny by Camille Pissarro, 1895
The Banks of the Epte at Eragny by Camille Pissarro, 1884
The Tedder by Camille Pissarro, 1884
View of Eragny by Camille Pissarro, 1884
Shepherdesses by Camille Pissarro, 1887
Mirbeau’s Garden, the Terrace by Camille Pissarro, 1892
Flowering Plum Tree, Eragny by Camille Pissarro, 1894
Morning, Flowering Apple Trees, Eragny by Camille Pissarro, 1898
The Artist’s Garden at Eragny by Camille Pissarro, 1898
Apple Trees and Poplars in the Setting Sun by Camille Pissarro, 1901
A Field in Varengeville by Camille Pissarro, 1899
Landscape with Strollers Relaxing under the Trees by Camille Pissarro, 1872
Garden of the Princess (Louvre) by Claude Oscar Monet is one of his earlier works from 1867—before the term “impressionism” came into being.
It can be considered “pre-impressionism”, incorporating hints of the impressionist style that would follow.
Garden of the Princess (Louvre) by Claude Oscar Monet 1867.
The sky, in particular, has the distinctively visible brush strokes, and the sense of movement that are crucial elements of impressionism.
The people and horse-drawn carriages in the street also share the same technique of dabs and blobs of paint.
However, the foreground—the Garden of the Princess—is painted in a more realistic style.
In this painting, we see the beginnings of a transition for Monet—from the realism of painting details and well-defined outlines, to the impressionism of painting the overall visual effect.
Enjoy this 5-minute discussion from expert curator Dr. Andria Derstine, the John G. W. Cowles Director of the Allen Memorial Art Museum that houses the work.
