Paris · Butte Montmartre · 1875 -1877
Renoir in Montmartre
A workshop on rue Cortot, a garden shrouded in sunshine and a popular ball where friends become models: Renoir transforms Montmartre into a major scene of modern Parisian life.
1876 · Oil on canvas · 131.5 × 176.5 cm · Musée d'Orsay, Paris.
A walk in four stages
From the quiet garden to the ball crowd
Montmartre allows Renoir to work almost simultaneously on landscape, portrait and collective scene. A few streets connect the workshop, models and entertainment venues.
Rue Cortot
In his studio, Renoir prepares his compositions and finds a network of painter and model friends.
The gardens
Vegetation filters light and provides the framework for The swing and Garden of rue Cortot.
The mill
The popular ball offers dancing, conversations, tight tables and crowd movements.
Modern Paris
Montmartre joins theaters, cafes and boulevards in a new painting of leisure.
A village in Paris
Montmartre, between countryside and metropolis
Annexed to Paris in 1860, the Butte retained sloping streets, gardens, open land and mills in the 1870s, while welcoming a population linked to workshops, cafes and shows. This coexistence attracts Renoir: he can paint an outdoor scene without leaving urban life.
The Moulin de la Galette concentrates this ambiguity. The Radet and Blute-Fin mills belong to the rural history of the district; the ball and tavern operated by the Debray family are part of a new leisure economy. People come to dance, drink, watch and meet.
Renoir doesn't give a documentary view of it. It almost erases the architecture behind the trees and places the horizon very high. The place becomes an envelope of light, music and body. Montmartre is recognizable by its social atmosphere more than by its monuments.
12, rue Cortot
The Renoir Workshop and Gardens
Renoir lived and worked on site between 1875 and 1876. The current gardens of the Montmartre museum bear his name in memory of the works designed in this environment.
The Garden of rue Cortot
A garden in Montmartre
The garden is not a decorative parenthesis around the workshop. It provides Renoir with a working device: models can pose outside, the foliage produces fragmented light and the intimate space allows gestures and conversations to be studied without the pressure of an official scene.
The Montmartre museum directly links this stay to Galette mill ball, to The swing and at Garden of rue Cortot. Even today, the gardens make a striking contrast with the busy streets of the Butte and make the old rural character of the district noticeable.
The 1876 masterpiece
The Galette Mill Ball: organize a crowd without freezing it
The large painting was painted mainly on site in the spring and summer of 1876, then probably completed in the workshops of rue Cortot and rue Saint-Georges. Renoir adopts a slightly elevated view from the steps. The track opens before him, while the high horizon compresses the depth.
The composition does not have a single center. Looks, arms, hats and chair backs form several chains. In the foreground, friends seated on the right stabilize the image. On the left, couples dance. In the background, the crowd becomes a vibration of faces and colors.
This organization produces a paradoxical impression: the viewer recognizes individuals, but no portrait is completely isolated. Everyone belongs to a collective circulation. Renoir thus invents a painting of sociability, where the relationship counts as much as the character.
The background
The crowd is suggested by faces, hats and close touches which prolong the movement.
The dancers
To the left and halfway, the couples give a circular direction and body rhythm to the scene.
The foreground
The group seated on the right creates links through looks and gestures, while opening the scene towards the spectator.
Two parallel works
Light passes through the foliage
The swing and the big one Bal are made during the same summer. They share models, garden and search for moving light.
The swing
A suspended conversation, four figures in the foreground and sun spots on clothes and the floor.
The Ball
The same luminous principle unifies an entire crowd: blues and mauves receive pink, orange and white flashes.
Renoir avoids the closed outline. The shapes are constructed by proximity of keys and by changes in colored temperature. A sleeve, a face or a table never completely detach from the ambient air. Critics of 1877 criticized this method for dissolving shapes.
This dissolution is, however, the driving force behind the painting. It conveys the sensation of music and movement without representing a spectacular gesture. The figures seem to change position because the light itself never appears stable.
Friends and Montmartre
A crowd made up of relatives
Renoir mixes identifiable friends and quickly observed figures. The workshop network becomes the human material of the painting.
Edmond Renoir
The painter's brother appears in The swing and belongs to the circle mobilized for the Montmartre scenes.
Norbert Goeneutte
Painter and engraver, he poses in The swing and is also among the dancers of the Grand Bal.
Jane
This young Montmartre looks away The swing and connects the stage to the neighborhood experienced.
The Friends Group
Painters, models and regulars give the work its credibility without transforming the party into an official portrait.
Modern Parisian life
From the popular ball to the theater box
Montmartre is just one chapter in a larger investigation into contemporary leisure. Renoir also paints theaters, cafes, walks and outing clothes. In The Lodge, the performance hall becomes a space where we look at both the audience and the stage.
These paintings question social visibility. At the Moulin de la Galette, everyone walks in the middle of a group. In the dressing room, the couple is exposed facing the room. Clothing, accessories and body positions indicate roles, but Renoir generally avoids biting satire.
His modern Paris is based on a form of empathy. Conversations, meals and dances are linked by gestures and an enveloping light. The unity of the painting becomes the pictorial equivalent of a group which momentarily shares the same place.
The mill
The meeting involves music, couples and circulation between tables.
The garden
A more intimate space where attitudes and silences become readable.
The theater
The lodge transforms the spectator into a spectacle and fashion into a social language.
Career of the painting
From Montmartre to the Musée d'Orsay
Painting on site and in the workshop
Renoir worked in the spring and summer at the Moulin, then probably took over the painting on rue Cortot and rue Saint-Georges.
Third impressionist exhibition
The big Ball and The swing are shown with the works of the independent group.
Acquisition by Caillebotte
Gustave Caillebotte buys the two paintings and thus protects works that are still contested.
Acceptance of the legacy
The Ball entered the national collections thanks to the Caillebotte legacy, before joining the Musée d'Orsay in 1986.
Montmartre Today
Find the scale of the places
The Montmartre museum and its gardens connect the paintings to the topography of rue Cortot. The Moulin de la Galette, rue Lepic and rue Girardon complete this reading on foot.
12, rue Cortot
The site preserves the memory of the artists who worked in this former Butte house.
The Renoir Gardens
Their current composition evokes the painter's palette and adjoins the wild Saint-Vincent garden.
Rue Lepic and Girardon
The streets allow you to understand the proximity between workshops, mills and party places.
Associated works
Six paintings to extend Montmartre
The ball, the gardens, the view of the neighborhood and Parisian leisure activities make up a coherent whole around the 1870s.
Galette mill ball
A crowd, filtered light and all the ambition of the modern scene.
Discover →The swing
An intimate conversation lit by the spots of the sun.
Discover →The Garden of rue Cortot
The workplace transformed into a pattern of light and vegetation.
Discover →View of Montmartre
La Butte still close to the village, before dense urbanization.
Discover →A garden in Montmartre
Another balance between foliage, architecture and color.
Discover →The Lodge
Watch, be seen and transform the show into a social scene.
Discover →Sources
Deepen Renoir in Montmartre
Notice of the great Ball
Date, dimensions, exhibition from 1877, Caillebotte provenance and analysis of the modern scene.
Musée d'Orsay →Analysis of 150 years
On-site painting, elevated viewpoint, three-plane structure and colorful technique.
Musée d'Orsay Magazine →The swing
Models, filtered light, parallel work at the Ball and critical reception in 1877.
Musée d'Orsay →The Renoir Gardens
Stay on rue Cortot, works painted on site and history of the gardens of the Montmartre museum.
Montmartre Museum →Frequently asked questions
Renoir in Montmartre in eight responses
When does Renoir work on rue Cortot?
Renoir lived and worked at 12, rue Cortot between 1875 and 1876. This environment is directly linked to the Bal du moulin de la Galette, La Balançoire and the Jardin on rue Cortot.
When was the Bal du moulin de la Galette painted?
The painting was painted mainly on site in the spring and summer of 1876, then probably taken up in the workshop during the fall and winter.
Where is the Bal du moulin de la Galette today?
The painting belongs to the collections of the Musée d'Orsay in Paris. He entered it in 1986 after being kept at the Luxembourg Museum, the Louvre and the Jeu de Paume.
What are the dimensions of the table?
The oil on canvas measures 131.5 × 176.5 cm. Its large format gives a popular leisure scene exceptional scale.
Who are the models of La Balançoire?
The Musée d'Orsay notably identifies Edmond Renoir, brother of the painter, Norbert Goeneutte and Jeanne, a young Montmartre resident. Several also appear in the great Ball.
Why does the light appear spotted?
Renoir represents the sun filtered by the foliage. Clear and colorful touches cross clothing, faces and the ground without following rigid contours.
Does the garden on rue Cortot still exist?
The Renoir Gardens of the Montmartre museum commemorate the painter's stay and the works created in this environment. Their current layout is inspired by his palette.
When was the painting exhibited by the Impressionists?
The Bal du moulin de la Galette was presented at the third impressionist exhibition in 1877, at the same time as La Balançoire.
0 comments