Two Young Girls at the Piano 1892

Pierre-Auguste Renoir painted "Two Young Girls at the Piano" with oil on canvas sometime in the late nineteenth century. Renoir was an impressionist painter who focused on domestic scenes of middle-class Parisians. Here, music and young women are combined in an image of bourgeois domesticity. In nineteenth-century France, music was considered to be a feminine accomplishment, and mastery of an instrument like the piano was thought to make young women more marriageable. While Renoir was considered to be part of the progressive impressionist movement, this painting is more traditional in style. He exhibited this work at the official Salon. The Salon's role was to preserve academic tradition and maintain control over the art world. This work, therefore, suggests the social function of art to be the reproduction of conservative social values. Art historians consult sources such as exhibition reviews, letters, and diaries to understand the cultural context and the role of institutions like the Salon in shaping the development of art.