Impressionist painter, singer of joy and life
A core member of the Impressionists, who carried the easel outdoors alongside Monet. Where Monet was obsessed with landscape and light, Renoir loved to paint people — above all men and women at play, dancing, picnicking. In his pictures, sunlight sifts through leaves in spots of light that fall on smiling faces and swaying skirts, and the scene always brims with a warm love of life. Bal du moulin de la Galette is the peak of this joy.
In Bal du moulin de la Galette, a crowd at an open-air dance is bathed in an afternoon sun, spots of light sifting through the leaves onto their faces, clothes, and tabletops. Renoir does not delineate each face; he catches only that flowing, flickering light and joy — which is the Impressionist creed: paint the light your eyes truly see, not the object you know.
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