The Umbrellas (Renoir painting)
| The Umbrellas | |
|---|---|
| French: Les Parapluies | |
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| Artist | Pierre-Auguste Renoir |
| Year | c. 1880–86 |
| Type | Oil |
| Medium | Canvas |
| Dimensions | 180.3 cm × 114.9 cm (71.0 in × 45.2 in) |
| Location | Hugh Lane Gallery, Dublin |
The Umbrellas (French: Les Parapluies) is an oil-on-canvas painting by Pierre-Auguste Renoir, painted in two phases in the 1880s. It is owned by the National Gallery in London as part of the Lane Bequest but is displayed alternately in London and at the Dublin City Gallery The Hugh Lane. In May 2013, it returned to Dublin for a six-year period.
Renoir began the painting in about 1880–81, using the loose brushwork with dark and bright tones typical of the Impressionist movement. In about 1885-6, after losing his attachment to Impressionism and drawing inspiration from classical art he had seen in Italy and the works of Ingres and Cézanne, he reworked parts of the painting, particularly the principal female figure to the left of the frame, in a more classical linear style using more muted colours, and added the background and the umbrellas themselves. X-ray photography has shown that the clothing of the female figure was originally different: she wore a hat and her dress had horizontal rows of frills, with white lace at its cuffs and collar, suggesting that she was middle class, whereas the simpler clothes in the revised painting mark her out as a member of the working class, a grisette not a bourgeoise. The x-ray analysis and then the changing fashions allow the periods of work to be dated with reasonable accuracy.
The painting measures 180.3 centimetres (71.0 in) high by 114.9 centimetres (45.2 in) wide. It depicts a busy street scene in Paris, with most of the people depicted using umbrellas against the rain. To the right, a mother looks down at her daughters, each fashionably dressed in the styles of 1881 for the afternoon promenade. She largely conceals a female figure at the centre of the frame, caught in the act of raising or lowering her umbrella, suggesting that the rain is about to start or stop. The principal female figure to the left of the frame, a milliner's assistant or modiste modelled by Renoir's lover and frequent subject Suzanne Valadon, holds up her skirt against the mud and water on the road as she carries a hatbox, but has no hat, raincoat or umbrella.
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