The Excursionist

By 1888 Renoir had spent several years pulling back from Impressionism. The loose, broken brushwork that made his name in the 1870s had started to trouble him, and for a stretch in the mid-1880s he drew harder edges and cooler surfaces, chasing the firmness of the old masters he had studied in Italy. This young woman in walking dress sits at the point where that experiment softens again. The paint goes on in thin, blended layers, one tone sliding into the next, and the landscape behind her is barely there, just colored notes to set off her face and her clothes. Despite the open-air subject, it was almost certainly worked up indoors in the studio. The walking stick in her hand is the only thing in the picture that explains the title.