Jeanne Samary 1878

Pierre-Auguste Renoir painted this portrait of Jeanne Samary, likely in the late 1870s, using oil paints on canvas. Notice the way that Renoir has applied the paint. It’s a mass of small brushstrokes, a technique typical of the Impressionists. This approach to painting is interesting when we consider the subject – a fashionable actress, wearing a lacy gown. Think of the labor involved, not only in the making of the painting but also in the making of that dress. All those tiny, careful stitches, multiplied by the garments of everyone in the painting’s milieu, would amount to an enormous amount of work. Renoir mimics this labor-intensive process in his own painstaking application of paint, seemingly elevating the dressmaker’s craft to the level of fine art. This is typical of Renoir, who reveled in the challenge of capturing light and texture. In this way, he invites us to consider the value of skilled work, whether in the realm of painting or dressmaking, and to reconsider the boundaries between the fine and applied arts.