Renoir 1/2

Renoir's painting is probably the most carefree and lightheaded one among the impressionists: his scenes are happy, funny, sometimes sensual, the artist is fascinated by feminine beauty, and there are no other purposes in his works except personal pleasure.  Even his teacher used to yell at him, complaining that he was representing too frivolous scenes..

Renoir was a close friend of Monet. They used to paint together natural sights en plain air as the impressionism stabilished, leaving us some pictures of the same sight at the same hour from 2 slightly different points of view (see "La grenouillere").

During the decline of the impressionism, feeling the weight of the critics, Renoir moved towards a more classical painting inspired by Raffaello: "The Large Bathers" drew on the classical late-renaissance theme of the nude women in the landscape, near a water source. That subject was allowed as the represented women were always goddesses and nymphs.

Selected Works

La Grenouillere - Stoccolma, Nationalmuseum

The large bathers - Museum of Art, Philadelphia

A few words about the music

Pachelbel's Canon in D didn't receive much attentions from its contemporaries, but is nowadays one of the most appreciated and wide-known classical compositions.

Pachelbel's Canon, as the name says, uses the technique of the canon. This is a polyphonic device in which several voices play the same lines of music, but enter one by one, each after a delay. In Pachelbel's piece, there are three voices engaged in canon, plus a fourth voice, the basso continuo, which plays an independent part.

A comedian, Rob Paravonian, performed a fabulous 5-minutes-show regarding Pachelbel's Canon in D. You can find it on Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JdxkVQy7QLM. Be sure not to miss that!