Andree in a Pink Dress 1917

Editor: So here we have Renoir’s “Andree in a Pink Dress,” painted in 1917. It’s an oil painting, and something about the soft, blurred edges gives the portrait a feeling of warmth, like a hazy memory. What catches your eye about this piece? Curator: Hazy memories, yes, precisely! I’m struck by how Renoir manages to capture such intimacy even with that characteristic shimmering surface. Look at the way the light catches the pink in her dress, it's almost like he’s trying to grasp a fleeting feeling. The pink almost seems to bleed out of the canvas. What does the dress make you think of? Editor: Well, the pink is soft, a little faded maybe, and with her pose – the hand supporting her head – she almost looks a little melancholy. Maybe she’s lost in her own thoughts. Curator: Melancholy…or perhaps just deeply comfortable in her own skin. See how the pink resonates with the overall warmth. To me, this captures a serene moment of interiority. I almost get the feeling the painting isn’t ABOUT her dress but the moment in which the person inhabited it, of their emotions flowing outwards into the dress and imbuing it with pink. Editor: I hadn’t thought about it that way. That idea gives me a totally different feeling! Curator: Art, I think, asks of us that it should do just that! Editor: Definitely. I love the thought of art as capturing not just an image, but a moment of being, imbued with feeling and life.