“… It is difficult to determine with precision the genre of Renoir’s painting” Monet working in his garden. “This is also a portrait, because Claud Monet is in front of us at the easel in front of us. This is also a landscape, as the panorama opens a quiet town with low two-story houses and a cloudy blue sky.
All this together makes up a portrait that goes beyond the usual genre framework and turns into a special portrait composition made up of many elements that, when combined in our perception, in the end most fully describe the character and inclinations of the portrait.
In his old age, in conversations recorded by the artist Albert Andre, Renoir recalled that he never had the temperament of a fighter and he would have given up the whole business if old Monet, who had a fighting temperament, was not friendly to cheer him up.
So he depicted him in the portrait, which is now in the Musee d’Orsay in Paris, standing full height with a palette and tassels in his hands, in a dark coat and hat, with a determined and focused expression on his face. Monet attentively peers at the view that interested him and is ready to depict all this with colors that are densely placed on the palette turned towards the audience… “
(2 votes, average: 4.50 out of 5)