Houses on a Hill 1908

Pierre-Auguste Renoir made this painting, Houses on a Hill, with oil on canvas and from what I can see, a whole lot of looking. There’s a real push-and-pull here in the way the paint has been applied. It's almost as though Renoir is simultaneously building up and dissolving what he sees in front of him; light and shadow create the form. It’s like a game of hide-and-seek, where the subject is revealed and concealed with each stroke. Look at the middle ground of the painting and the tangle of greens and browns. Do you see the suggestion of something deeper, like a garden or a hidden pathway? He gives us just enough information to make us feel like we know what’s going on, but not enough to really grasp it. It reminds me of Cezanne, whose painting career started about a decade before Renoir’s and whose own work dissolved the landscape into similar blocks of color, pushing the boundaries of representation. I think that’s where the magic lies. It’s not just about what he paints but how he paints it.