The Daughters of Catulle Mendès

In 1888 Renoir was trying to reinvent himself. He had grown dissatisfied with soft Impressionist blur and pushed toward sharper drawing and harder edges, a shift many of his admirers found difficult. For this large canvas he painted the three young daughters of his friend Catulle Mendès, a well-known poet, and their mother Augusta Holmès, a celebrated pianist and composer. Renoir was counting partly on the parents' fame to draw attention, and on the girls' charm at the piano. He finished the work in a matter of weeks and showed it that May. The response was lukewarm. Viewers found the faces oddly schematic and the colours strange, all those streaks of blue and violet worked across the white dresses.