The Onions

This Renoir painting is far from many paintings we usually associate with Renoir. These onions and garlic were painted during Renoir’s journey to Naples in 1881. It was the time when the famous dealer Durand-Ruel had begun to buy Renoirs paintings regularly, so he was enjoying a measure of financial freedom. Renoir may have felt that, for once, he did not need to rise to the painting's occasion. Clear light and fluid brushstrokes define the onions’ round, solid forms and capture the shiny, papery quality of their skins. The arrangement looks so refreshingly provisional, carelessly tumbled out on to the surface of this table – so unlike, for example, so many of the still lifes of Cézanne, which feel deeply calculated and constructed. This sense of rush and hurry seems to be accentuated by the blue and yellow diagonal strokes, so rapid, wind-blown and vaporous, of the background. This painting was suggested by Mark, one of our most devoted users.