'' La Promenade'' is an oil on canvas, early Impressionist painting by the French artist Pierre-Auguste Renoir, created in 1870. The work depicts a young couple on an excursion outside of the city, walking on a path through a

woodland A woodland () is, in the broad sense, land covered with trees, or in a narrow sense, synonymous with wood (or in the U.S., the ''plurale tantum'' woods), a low-density forest forming open habitats with plenty of sunlight and limited shade (se ...

.House, John (1997).
Pierre-Auguste Renoir: La Promenade
'. Getty Publications. pp. 1, 14, 53, 55, 81. . . Influenced by the

rococo revival The Rococo Revival style emerged in Second Empire France and then was adapted in England. Revival of the rococo style was seen all throughout Europe during the 19th century within a variety of artistic modes and expression including decorative ...

style during the

Second Empire Second Empire may refer to: * Second British Empire, used by some historians to describe the British Empire after 1783 * Second Bulgarian Empire (1185–1396) * Second French Empire (1852–1870) ** Second Empire architecture, an architectural styl ...

, Renoir's '' La Promenade'' reflects the older style and themes of eighteenth-century artists like

Jean-Honoré Fragonard Jean-Honoré Fragonard (; 5 April 1732 (birth/baptism certificate) – 22 August 1806) was a French painter and printmaker whose late Rococo manner was distinguished by remarkable facility, exuberance, and hedonism. One of the most prolific art ...

and Jean-Antoine Watteau. The work also shows the influence of

Claude Monet Oscar-Claude Monet (, , ; 14 November 1840 – 5 December 1926) was a French painter and founder of impressionist painting who is seen as a key precursor to modernism, especially in his attempts to paint nature as he perceived it. Durin ...

on Renoir's new approach to painting.

Background

The forest was a popular landscape subject for nineteenth-century French artists, particularly the

forest of Fontainebleau The forest of Fontainebleau (french: Forêt de Fontainebleau, or ''Forêt de Bière'', meaning "forest of heather") is a mixed deciduous forest lying southeast of Paris, France. It is located primarily in the arrondissement of Fontainebleau ...

. Before Renoir,

(1840–1926) painted ''Bazille and Camille (Study for "Déjeuner sur l'Herbe")'' (1865), showing a couple together in the forest. In 1869, Renoir and Monet spent time painting together at La Grenouillère. By 1870, Renoir was living in Louveciennes with his mother. Throughout this decade, the eighteenth-century

rococo Rococo (, also ), less commonly Roccoco or Late Baroque, is an exceptionally ornamental and theatrical style of architecture, art and decoration which combines asymmetry, scrolling curves, gilding, white and pastel colours, sculpted moulding, ...

art movement was back in style and Renoir embraced it.Groom, Gloria (2001). ''Beyond the Easel: Decorative Painting by Bonnard, Vuillard, Denis, and Roussel, 1890–1930''. Yale University Press. p. 10. . . France declared war against Germany on 19 July 1870, starting the Franco-Prussian War. Renoir was conscripted and served four months in the cavalry but never saw combat.Strieter, Terry W. (1999). ''Nineteenth-century European Art: A Topical Dictionary''. Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 206. .

Description

A young man, possibly a ''canotier'' (boatman) given his distinctive

boater __NOTOC__ A boater (also straw boater, basher, skimmer, The English Panama, cady, katie, canotier, somer, sennit hat, or in Japan, can-can hat, suruken) is a semi-formal summer hat for men, which was popularised in the late 19th century and e ...

hat, holds the hand of a young woman on a path surrounded by bushes, perhaps on the banks of the Seine, with the implication of an upcoming intimate encounter. The image of lovers walking through a woodland is based on a popular rococo theme.Herbert, Robert L. (1988). ''Impressionism: Art, Leisure, and Parisian Society''. Yale University Press. pp. 190–192. . . Interpretations of the figure models vary. It is generally believed that the model for the woman in ''La Promenade'' was

Lise Tréhot Lise Tréhot (14 March 1848 – 12 March 1922) was a French art model who posed for artist Pierre-Auguste Renoir from 1866 until 1872, during his early Salon period. She appeared in more than twenty paintings, including notable works such as ...

, Renoir's favorite model and companion during his early Salon period. In the past, it was believed that the man in the painting was landscape painter

Alfred Sisley Alfred Sisley (; ; 30 October 1839 – 29 January 1899) was an Impressionist landscape painter who was born and spent most of his life in France, but retained British citizenship. He was the most consistent of the Impressionists in his dedicatio ...

(1839–1899) and the woman was Rapha, a companion of musician Edmond Maître (1840–1898). The original title of the painting is unknown. It first received the title ''La Promenade'' by unnamed owners of the work when it was put up for sale in 1898. It was not until 1941 that questions about the original title came to light. Renoir was known to strenuously object to sentimental titles applied by others to his work. "Why have they given names to my pictures which never represent the reason I painted such and such a subject? My joy consists in painting, and it has never been in my mind to paint a preconceived subject", Renoir said in his later years.''Renoir Centennial Loan Exhibition'', 1941, as cited in House 1997, p. 55. However, Renoir did exhibit a painting with the title of ''La Promenade'' in 1876, but that work is now known as '' Mother and Children''.

Critical reception

In a commentary for the exhibition ''Origins of Impressionism'' (1994–95),

Henri Loyrette Henri Loyrette (born 31 May 1952 in Neuilly-sur-Seine, a suburb of Paris) was the chairman of Admical, a French organisation dedicated to corporate philanthropy., and the former director of the Louvre Museum (2001–2013). He became first curato ...

writes that ''La Promenade'' "succeeds at last in what Renoir had for so long and so vainly sought: the integration of the figure in a landscape".Tinterow, Gary. Henri Loyrette (1994). ''Origins of Impressionism''. Metropolitan Museum of Art. pp. 141, 457. . . Loyrette notes the influence of Monet in ''La Promenade'' and the change in Renoir's style since ''Les Fiancés'' (1868). The Impressionist influence on Renoir, Perrin Stein writes, led to his increasing use of the high-key palette. Renoir's "lightness and delicacy of touch" here is, according to art historian John House, reminiscent of rococo artist

(1732–1806). Critics also view the influence of Jean-Antoine Watteau (1684–1721) on this work, particularly in Renoir's use of the intimate couple in the woods, a motif popularized in scenes found in Watteau's ''

fête galante ''Fête galante'' () (courtship party) is a category of painting specially created by the French Academy in 1717 to describe Antoine Watteau's (1684–1721) variations on the theme of the fête champêtre, which featured figures in ball dress o ...

'' genre.

Other work

Auguste Renoir - Lovers - Google Art Project

In addition to ''La Promenade'', Renoir explored

themes in several subsequent works including ''The Lovers'' (1875) and ''Confidences'' (1878). In 1883, Renoir created a drawing titled ''Couple on a Hillside'' for the French literary review ''La Vie Moderne'' based on a variation of ''La Promenade'' a decade earlier, but redesigned to show different angles and positions of the original figures.J. Paul Getty Museum (2003). ''Masterpieces of Painting in the J. Paul Getty Museum''. Getty Publications. p. 93. . .Walsh, John. (1990). "Acquisitions". ''The J. Paul Getty Museum Journal'', Volume 18. The J. Paul Getty Museum. p. 176. .

Provenance

John Walsh, American art historian and former director of the

J. Paul Getty Museum The J. Paul Getty Museum, commonly referred to as the Getty, is an art museum in Los Angeles, California housed on two campuses: the Getty Center and Getty Villa. The Getty Center is located in the Brentwood neighborhood of Los Angeles and fea ...

, is credited with helping acquire ''La Promenade'' for the Getty collection in 1989.Muchnic, Suzanne (April 6, 1989).
Getty Picks Up a 'Delightful' Renoir for $17.7 Million
." ''Los Angeles Times''. Retrieved April 16, 2015.Davis, Margaret L. (2007). ''The Culture Broker: Franklin D. Murphy and the Transformation of Los Angeles''. p. 303. University of California Press. . . *Gustave Goupy *

Paul Durand-Ruel Paul Durand-Ruel (31 October 1831, Paris – 5 February 1922, Paris) was a French art dealer associated with the Impressionists and the Barbizon School. Being the first to support artists such as Claude Monet, Camille Pissarro, and Pierre-Auguste ...

Paul Cassirer Paul Cassirer (21 February 1871, in Görlitz – 7 January 1926, in Berlin) was a German art dealer and editor who played a significant role in the promotion of the work of artists of the Berlin Secession and of French Impressionists and Post-Im ...

* Bernhard Köhler * Paul Rosenberg *Nate B. and Frances Spingold *Seito *British Rail Pension Trustee Company, Ltd.

References

External links

*
La Promenade
' at the

{{DEFAULTSORT:Promenade 1870 paintings Paintings by Pierre-Auguste Renoir Landscape paintings Paintings in the J. Paul Getty Museum