Standing Woman and Seated Woman in a Landscape (Une femme debout et une femme assise dans un paysage)

Discussion

FROM THE BARNES FOUNDATION’S CATALOG

Disenchanted with urban life and contemporary subjects during the early 1880s, Renoir began to seek out new ways of integrating figures into rural settings. While he occasionally explored agricultural themes, more often he depicted figures at leisure. In his later work, the activities of the subjects—virtually always women—are more ambiguous. Sometimes we see women washing clothes in a stream, but frequently they are simply seated in their natural surroundings. The present canvas depicts a woman with a basket in hand while her companion rests on a grassy bank: prop and pose suggest that the two figures are harvesters.

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