Renoir, Pierre-Auguste (1841-1919)
Femme à l’éventail (Woman with Fan)
1886
Oil on canvas, 55.9 x 45.7 cm
Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia
This painting exemplifies the drastic shift in Renoir‘s style during the mid-1880s. After several years of working in an impressionist mode defined by loose brushwork and broken forms, Renoir decided to emulate the stability and solid forms he saw in earlier painting traditions. In this portrait of a woman holding a fan, paint is smooth, contours are unbroken, and the composition is carefully designed. Impressionist spontaneity has given way to order and balance. (BF)