Romance of Renoir

by Miriam Schulman, @schulmanArt

 If you are in New York and looking for a romantic date night or outing, the Frick has a marvelous exhibition of Renoir's full length paintings. If the impressionist palette weren't romantic enough with its affected pastel colors and soft brushwork, Renoir's subject matter of these fantastically dressed Parisians takes the art over the top. His fanatical attention to the fashions of the day from hats, gloves to the seductive gestures, you will melt while looking at these paintings. In addition to the trio of full length dancers that are borrowed from the Musee d'Orsay and Museum of Fina Arts in Boston, there are other full length paintings of ballerinas, socialites and women enjoying modern daily life.  after your visit to the Frick, round the corner on Madison Avenue and wait in line for authentic French macarons at LADURÉE.

From the Frick's website: Probably the last of these three Dance pictures to be completed, Dance at Bougival is the most romantic of the trilogy. Eyes masked by his boatman's straw hat, the male partner expresses his intentions through body language that is as legible today as it would have been a century and a quarter ago. His female companion's willing compliance completes the harmony, both visual and sensual, that is at the heart of this painting. The touching of ungloved hands and the proximity of the dancers' faces would have appeared audacious to a late nineteenth-century audience. Like the companion Dance pictures, Dance at Bougival achieves the luminosity of Renoir's Impressionist work while maintaining the solidity of modeling that characterized his most recent portraits and figure paintings. The participants are shown enjoying a Sunday afternoon ball at Bougival, a village ten miles west of Paris with a somewhat dubious reputation.

through May 13, 2012

mentioned in this article: @museedorsay. @frickcollection, @mfaboston, @MaisonLaduree