Dance in the Country

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Dance in the Country: Pierre-Auguste Renoir

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Art Type: Oil Painting
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Pierre-Auguste Renoir Oil Painting - Dance in the Country

Keywords: Dance, Country

Work Overview: Dance in the Country
Artist Pierre-Auguste Renoir
Year 1883
Medium Oil on canvas
Dimensions 180 cm × 90 cm (71 in × 35 in)
Style Impressionism
Period Rejection of Impressionism
Genre genre painting
Location Musée d'Orsay, Paris

Dance in the Country (French: Danse à la campagne) is an 1883 oil painting by French artist Pierre-Auguste Renoir. It is currently kept at the Musée d'Orsay in Paris.

This painting was commissioned in 1882 by the merchant Paul Durand-Ruel who wanted works on the theme of the ball. He bought it in 1886, exhibited it for the first time in April 1883, and kept it until Renoir's death in 1919. A complementary painting on the same theme, named Dance in the City, was also painted by Renoir the same year.[1][2]

The painting, influenced by the artist's trip in Italy in 1881 where he found inspiration from Raphael, marked an evolution of the painter who tried then to break away from Impressionism.

The painting depicts a couple dancing under a chestnut tree: the man is Paul Lhôte, a friend of the painter, and the woman is Aline Charigot, who later became the wife of the painter. Both figures are painted life-size and occupy almost the entire painting. However, a table in the background on the right, and a hat on the ground, and a pair of faces below the level of the dance floor, can be seen. The woman who holds a fan in her right hand, displays a smiling face and looks towards the viewer. The scene is bathed in a bright and cheerful atmosphere, and the women's clothes use warm colors (yellow gloves, red hat).

Pierre-Auguste Renoir created many beautiful paintings in his lifetime, including Dance in the Country. This is an oil painting that is currently housed in the Musée d’Orsay in Paris.

Background
This piece was ordered in 1882 for Paul Durand-Ruel, who kept it until 1919, when Renoir passed away. He wanted art that featured the theme of a ball in unique detail. Renoir used inspiration from his trips to Italy and Raphael, who was also an influential painter.

Appearance
Dance in the Country features a man, Paul Lothe, and a woman, Aline Charigot, dancing with each other on a balcony. These life-size figures are holding each other close, the woman has a smile on her face and her body is wrapped around the man’s. She’s facing the viewer while the man has his face on the side of the woman. There is a table to the side, but the dancers take up most of the space. There are warm colors used except for the dark suit that the man is wearing.

Renoir liked dance scenes. These two paintings were designed as a pair: the format is identical and the almost life-size figures represent two different even opposite aspects of dancing. The elegant restraint of the city dancers and the cool ballroom around them contrasts with the gaiety of the country dance in the open air.

The couple swept away by the music seems to have left a disorderly table, a carelessness accentuated by the hat dropped in the foreground. There are many contrasts between the two panels, even in the colours, cool for Suzanne Valadon's dress in City Dance, warm for Aline Charigot, Renoir's future wife, who lends her laughing features to the country dancer. But apart from their differences, the two couples seem to be linked by the same movement, as if they incarnated a sequence from the same dance.

Exhibited by Durand-Ruel, who owned them for many years, the two paintings mark a change in Renoir's technique in the early 1880s. The drawing is more precise and the simplification of the palette contrasts sharply with the vibrant brushstrokes of his earlier works. Renoir himself admitted that a keener attention to drawing was the result of a need for change he felt after seeing Raphael's works in Italy.

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The composition of Dance in the Country is typical of Renoir's flowing style but in contrast to his earlier works, all three of his Dance paintings have tighter compositions, and lines are used to direct the viewer's eye towards the couple at the center of the canvas.

Dance in the Country has a light composition and its figures are delicate. Movement is portrayed through the couples' body language and clothing and it appears that they are immersed in their own thoughts and space.

Dance in the Country shows Renoir drawing accurately as well as adopting a simpler palette than in previous works. He admitted that this greater attention to drawing was the result of his need to change his technique following his trip to Italy.

In Dance in the Country Renoir paints Aline Charigot - his future wife - using warm colors and the light colors of her dress contrast with the darkness of the man´s suit, forcing their images to the foreground. Renoir uses brush strokes up and around the couple´s feet and at the hem of Aline´s bright dress, where movement is depicted through the swooshing motion.

Renoir's nuances of light and shadow come together to create a warm, sensual painting. Famous for his vibrant light and saturated color, he depicts the couple in Dance in the Country intimately and honestly. In true Impressionist style, Renoir suggests the details of this scene through liberally brushed touches of color, so that the couple softly fuses with one another and their surroundings.

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