Grape Gatherers (Vendangeuses)

Discussion

FROM THE BARNES FOUNDATION’S CATALOG

Idealized visions of peasants at rest were very popular in the exhibitions of the Paris Salon toward the end of the 19th century. But while naturalist artists such as Jules Breton and Léon Lhermitte addressed the correlation between toil and weary rest, here Renoir focuses on the idylls of rural life and on the painting's formal qualities. Richly colored, with a play of high-key warm and cool hues, the canvas is thickly worked and unified by long sequences of ribbon-like brushstrokes that suggest the forms of the figures and the lay of the ground.

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