Renoir, Pierre-Auguste (1841-1919)
La balançoire (The Swing)
1876
Oil on canvas, 92 x 73 cm
Musée d’Orsay, Paris
From 1877 to 1894: in the Gustave Caillebotte collection
1894: accepted by the State as a legacy of Gustave Caillebotte
A young man seen from the back is talking to a young woman standing on a swing, watched by a little girl and another man, leaning against the trunk of a tree. Renoir gives us the impression of surprising a conversation – as if in a snapshot, he catches the glances turned towards the man seen from the back. The young woman is looking away as if she were embarrassed. The foursome in the foreground is balanced by the group of five figures sketchily brushed in the background.
The Swing has many points in common with The Ball at the Moulin de la Galette. The two pictures were painted in parallel in the summer of 1876. The models in The Swing, Edmond, Auguste Renoir‘s brother, the painter Norbert Goeneutte and Jeanne, a young woman from Montmartre, figure among the dancers in The Ball. The same carefree atmosphere infuses both pictures. As in The Ball, Renoir is particularly trying to catch the effects of sunlight dappled by the foliage. The quivering light is rendered by the patches of pale colour, particularly on the clothing and the ground. This particularly annoyed the critics when the painting was shown at the Impressionist exhibition of 1877. The Swing nonetheless found a buyer – Gustave Caillebotte, who also bought The Ball at the Moulin de la Galette. (Orsay)
Compare:
Renoir, Auguste (1841-1919)
Bal du moulin de la Galette
1876
Musée d’Orsay, Paris
See also:
• Caillebotte, Gustave (1848-1894) | Renoir, Edmond-Victor (1849-1944) | Samary, Jeanne (1857-1890)