portrait of monet auguste renoir

portrait of monet auguste renoirThis portrait shows Claude Monet at the age of thirty five, then at the heart of his most radically Impressionist period. Auguste Renoir and Monet had maintained a deep friendship since their first meeting at the Gleyre studio in 1862, and had painted side by side many open air scenes, notably at La Grenouillre and Argenteuil. This portrait bears witness to that fraternal closeness between the two founders of the movement, at a crucial moment when

combining urban landscape and genre scene

The golden accents that dot the canvas are reminiscent of Klimt's own symbolist and decorative aesthetic

simplified forms and expressive brushstrokes

creating a scene that is both industrial and almost poetic

Rather than copying the original painting

it was nearly 60 years later that this marvellous black sun would pass on the incredible story into which it was plunged at the dawn of the Second World War

The work reflects his personal language derived from Cubism

This post-impressionist painting depicts a serene

but transformed into geometric forms

The composition teems with figures arranged across multiple planes: on the right

This approach to constructing the image reflects his quest for a modern pictorial language

embody a place of silence and oblivion where time seems to stand still