Landscape, La Gaude c. 1910

Pierre-Auguste Renoir painted this landscape of La Gaude using oil on canvas. Renoir was part of a movement which challenged academic painting, taking his easel and premixed paints out into the countryside. In this work, the viscosity of the oil paint gives a lusciousness to the foliage, buildings, and sky. Notice how the artist builds up color on the canvas, dabbing the brush with paint, creating a play of light and shadow to evoke the atmosphere of the landscape. Renoir and his contemporaries revolutionized the art world, celebrating not only the subject of the artwork, but also the medium and materiality of paint. His gestural application of color and tone created something that would be hard to achieve by hand. The artist made it, and the artist made it look like it was made. This approach to the techniques and materials of painting emphasized the importance of both process and context, and blurred the distinction between fine art and other skilled practices.