01.03.2012 / Arts & Culture
Full-length format
It was high time someone suggested a brand new perspective on Impressionism. The Frick Collection in New York presents a small exhibition displaying nine paintings by Impressionist artist Pierre-Auguste Renoir, focusing on a single feature of his work: the full-length format.
The main painting around which the whole exhibition revolves is La Promenade (see picture left side), the most significant Impressionist work in the Frick’s permanent collection, depicting a a young woman guiding two identically outfitted little girls along a public garden path.
This huge vertical format, intended for public display, played a crucial role in the development of Renoir’s art, allowing him to study his characters thoroughly, focusing mostly on the details of their outfits.
In other words, a small and precious history of costume from the Belle Epoque. In some of his paintings, such as The Umbrellas from the London National Gallery permanent collection (see picture right side), Renoir also the depicted common people – workers and bourgeois who were just then beginning to affirm their rights – and their clothes.
An artist who managed to accuraely and finely represent his time – this is the portrait of Renoir transiping from the Frick’s collectiom exhibition. A portrait enhancing that of the most popular Renoir, the painter of open-air scenes crowded with people, nudes and landscapes where nature has been examined in every single aspect. The man who first discovered that “no shadow is black. It always has a color“.
(Gloria Lucchese)
Renoir, Impressionism and Full–length Painting, until May 13
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