The Umbrellas

About this artwork - painting analysis

The Umbrellas by Pierre-Auguste Renoir constitutes a singular work that bears witness to a profound stylistic shift in the artist's career. Painted between 1881 and 1886, this large-format canvas captures a lively Parisian scene where an elegant crowd huddles together during a sudden downpour. The composition reveals a fascinating evolution: examined closely, the work presents two distinct styles that coexist on the same canvas, testifying to a major period of creative transition.

The right side of the painting, executed first, is fully inscribed within the Impressionist aesthetic that made Renoir's reputation. The female figures and the little girl with her hoop display shimmering hues, luminous pinks and blues, with that fluid and vibrant brushwork characteristic of the movement. The forms seem to dissolve into a vaporous atmosphere where light plays through raindrops. In contrast, the left side, completed after a determining journey to Italy, bears witness to a return toward classical rigor. The young milliner in the foreground, identified as Suzanne Valadon, the future celebrated painter, stands out with sharper contours, a darkened palette dominated by deep blues and grays, and a more architectural construction of volumes.

This stylistic duality makes The Umbrellas an exceptional document of the creative crisis Renoir experienced in the mid-1880s. Dissatisfied with the Impressionist approach that he deemed too evanescent, the painter was then seeking to recover the solidity of drawing and the permanence of the old masters. The motif of the umbrellas, repeated in a cascade of blue curves, nonetheless unifies this dual composition and creates a captivating visual rhythm that guides the eye through the urban crowd.

Housed in the National Gallery in London, this canvas remains precious testimony to the artistic questioning of the late nineteenth century, where tradition and modernity engaged in intense dialogue, heralding the pictorial upheavals of the following century.

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Image license: faithful photographic reproduction of a two-dimensional public domain work of art.