Auguste Renoir - By the seashore 1883

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From Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City:
Renoir likely painted this work in his studio, posing his model and future wife, Aline Charigot, in a wicker chair. The beach behind her probably represents the Normandy coast near Dieppe. This canvas reflects the impact of Renoir’s trip to Italy in 1881–82, which inspired him to unite the “grandeur and simplicity” he admired in Renaissance art with the luminosity of Impressionism. His new approach, which he called his “dry” manner, is evident in Aline’s face, with its carefully drawn features and smooth handling of paint. The medley of quick strokes in the background, however, displays the freer technique of Renoir’s earlier years.

In 1886,Van Gogh writes to a friend: ‘I have made a series of colour studies
in painting simply flowers (…) seeking oppositions of blue with orange, red
and green, yellow and violet, seeking the broken and neutral tones to
harmonise brutal extremes. Trying to render intense colour and not a grey
harmony’. - art-vanGogh.com

In his book Noa Noa Gauguin describes his experience of Tahiti and its inhabitants
on his arrival in 1891. He describes the woman in the portrait thus: 'She was not
pretty – at least not by European standards – but beautiful.' Disillusioned with
Europe and the Western art scene Gauguin took his leave and went in search
of a new beginning in the Pacific Islands. - art-Gauguin.com

art-Renoir.com

Auguste Renoir 1841-1919