Woman Daydreaming 1913

Pierre-Auguste Renoir made Woman Daydreaming with oil on canvas, using soft brushstrokes in a palette of pink, green and peach. You can almost smell the lilacs, can't you? I wonder if he built up these colours gradually? Maybe he was trying to capture a fleeting moment or a certain kind of light. I love how Renoir captures the woman lost in thought, leaning on her hand. What do you think she's thinking? I imagine Renoir outside, working en plein air, squinting in the light. He’s trying to make the invisible visible, like an impressionist ghost. He takes a dab of cadmium and smears it on the canvas. It’s not just the colour, it's the way it’s put down that makes this painting so alive! I think it must have been hard to do, to make it look like it just happened. Renoir and other painters like Manet and Monet were all in conversation with each other, even battling! They looked at each other's paintings, pushing each other to find new ways of seeing. Like, what if painting wasn’t about perfect representation, but about a feeling? They wanted to capture the essence of a moment, not just its surface appearance. It’s all about feeling!