The Vineyards of Cagnes 1908

Pierre-Auguste Renoir made "The Vineyards of Cagnes" with oil on canvas, and the gestural marks and the ochre, rust and sap green colour palette conjure up an impressionistic vision. Imagine Renoir outside in the south of France, dabbing paint onto the canvas, shifting and changing his mind as he goes – it must have been a sensory overload. I can sympathise with him actually! I often wonder, what was he thinking when he made this painting? Maybe he wanted to capture the dappled light, and the feeling of the warm sun on his face. The paint is applied quite thinly, in short, broken strokes. See how the strokes of paint communicate a feeling of movement and light? The curves in the trees on either side of the frame, the figure lurking in the shade – there are all sorts of visual rhymes going on in this painting. These kinds of conversations happen all the time in art, across generations. This piece is Renoir's way of asking questions about painting, about vision, about life.