Seascape

Painting the sea was very unusual for Pierre-Auguste Renoir. The artist painted it during his stay at the home of Paul Berard, his devoted patron and a diplomat and banker whom he met in 1878 in Wargemont on the Normandy coast. Here Renoir depicted a site untouched by urbanization or modernization. Rather than paint nature as an untamable elemental force, however, the artist delicately brushed his wave in blue violets that transform the work into a mood picture, whose effect is more decorative than foreboding, more melancholy than stormy. It is nature tamed and poeticized by Renoir’s temperament and characteristic lightness of touch.

If you would like to learn more about the patrons of the Impressionists, you must check our Mega Impressionists online course here.  :)

P.S. Did you know that Vincent van Gogh also painted a seascape once? Click here to see it!