Pierre-Auguste Renoir's La Promenade is one of the most engaging and approachable of all Impressionist paintings. To late-twentieth-century eyes, the picture raises few questions and poses few problems. Indeed, little has been written about it, despite its regular appearance in exhibitions and in the Renoir literature. This study of the work—a masterpiece from the collection of the J. Paul Getty Museum—reveals surprising details about the sexual, historical, and artistic contexts in which the painting was created.
John House, a professor at the University of London's Courtauld Institute of Art, examines the many facets of the work and what it reveals about Renoir as a man and artist. He asks, "What did it mean to paint a picture like La Promenade in France in 1870, in the final months of Napoleon III's Second Empire?" The reader is invited to look at the work— and Impressionism—as a rejection of the idealist world of academic art and as a challenge to social and moral norms.
Series: Getty Museum Studies on Art
Price: $20.00 
|
