In the Woods 

Curator: Ah, I just want to leap right into this painting, to be consumed by those sun-drenched, leafy hues. It's a Renoir, untitled, simply known as "In the Woods". The painting is believed to be created using oil on canvas in the plein-air style, and it is just so transportive. Editor: Absolutely, plein-air works hold this powerful charm of letting you immerse in nature through a slice of history. Do you get a slightly disorienting feeling, as if losing your bearings? Curator: A little! There is an ambiguity about the space. The woodland setting dissolves almost completely into flecks of paint. Renoir’s impressionistic brushstrokes mimic the dappled sunlight filtering through the foliage. This certainly was the ethos behind it all: painting fleeting moments. Editor: Exactly, he's more concerned with the emotional impression, rather than anatomical correctness; a world not rendered, but felt. It speaks volumes about our modern world's complicated and often distorted relationship with nature, a longing perhaps to be released back into the wild where truth is not defined. Curator: I wonder though if Renoir would necessarily agree with our interpretations. He was certainly focused on light and capturing the fleeting effects of the moment. The painting, through the context of his career, is of course about his movement toward an increasingly looser style, a departure from the more formal academic traditions. It marks his public evolution, and the rise of impressionism within institutions, influencing our experience. Editor: It is very true, we often drag along truckloads of interpretations onto canvases from our current worldview, without fully grasping their original motivation! And our institutions and art markets often control our appreciation, influencing popular consensus. It’s funny to imagine this canvas causing all kinds of scandal when it was originally unveiled, and now it has become a poster for pure escapism! Curator: Well said! I will never look at "In the Woods" quite the same way again. Editor: Exactly! Maybe that’s all there is to art in the end; this ever-shifting tapestry where an artwork reveals a new facet based on a thousand variables, most of which we can never quite put our fingers on!