Auguste Renoir - Dance at Bougival 1883

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From Museum of Fine Arts, Boston:
The open-air cafés of suburban Bougival, on the Seine outside Paris, were popular recreation spots for city dwellers, including the Impressionist painters. Renoir, who was primarily a figure painter, uses intense color and lush brushwork to heighten the sense of pleasure conveyed by the whirling couple who dominate the composition. The woman’s face, framed by her red bonnet, is the focus of attention, both ours and her companion’s.

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