Le Moulin de la Galette by Pierre-Auguste Renoir

Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841-1919) was a leading French Impressionist, although he later broke away from the movement to paint in other styles. He spent much of his early life in appalling poverty and in his later years was afflicted with severe arthritis which made painting difficult and painful. However, throughout his life he maintained a positive, cheerful outlook that radiates through his work, his “Ball [or Dance] at Le Moulin de la Galette” being a typical example, and probably his most celebrated painting.

This painting dates from 1876 and was exhibited at the third Impressionist Exhibition in 1877, the last such at which he exhibited. It depicts a scene at a popular Paris venue, a café in Montmartre which was close to where Renoir was living at the time. It took its name from the fact that it was based on an old windmill and specialised in serving “galettes”, a popular type of pancake.

The poorer people of Paris would flock here in their hundreds on summer Sunday afternoons, dressed in their best clothes, to dance on the space outside the café, and to eat, drink and socialise. Renoir regularly took his easel and paints with him to the “Moulin” and composed the work on the spot over a number of weeks. His friends and regular models posed for most of the figures in the foreground of the painting, although there are many more to be seen, in progressively less detail as they recede into the background, in this very busy scene of Parisians at play.

One problem that fascinated Renoir was how to depict dappled sunlight filtering through trees. He did this by applying patches of differently coloured paint on dancers’ clothes and faces, and on the ground. He was also fascinated by the colours of female skin tones, and would later be preoccupied by this quest in later years when he turned to nudes as his predominant subject matter.

In this painting there are two young women whose faces are prominent at the centre of the canvas, and Renoir has clearly taken pains to get the colouring right, using soft pinks and flesh tones to depict the softness of their skin and convey the impression of healthy young people enjoying a conversation with the seated men who have attracted their attention.

As the viewer looks around this fairly large canvas (175 by 131 centimetres, or 69 by 52 inches) he or she will see that everyone here is in contact with someone else, either physically or by engaging in conversation. Some of the dancers are kissing each other or “whispering sweet nothings”, and many of the faces wear smiles. This is a scene of happiness and liveliness that is guaranteed to give the viewer an uplifting feeling.

Renoir’s skill is to use the filtered sunlight, as it plays on the clothing, hats and hair of the seated and standing figures, to soften their outlines and blend them with their surroundings and the shadows on the ground. This gives a diffusion of colour across the canvas that also enhances the sense of community that is engendered by the actions of the people depicted.

“Le Moulin de la Galette” is regarded today as one of the most successful impressionist works ever painted, so it is something of a mystery why Renoir abandoned the style not many years after painting it. It may have been the constant rejections of Impressionism by the Paris artistic establishment that made him seek a fresh path, but the modern viewer might take the line that the dancing figures in his 1883 “Dance in the Country”, painted in a more classical style, have lost much of the intimacy of those in “Le Moulin”.

Renoir painted the scene twice, the second painting being a smaller version of the first. The original canvas may be seen at the Musée d’Orsay in Paris. The smaller version is in private hands, having been sold in 1990 to the Japanese collector Ryoei Saito for $78.1 million. With adjustments for changing currency values, this makes it the fifth most expensive painting of all time.

© John Welford