Wheatfield

In 1879 Renoir stayed out of the Impressionists' fourth group show and sent his work to the official Salon instead, where his big portrait of Madame Charpentier and her children was well received. Portrait commissions followed. That summer he went to Normandy, to Wargemont near Dieppe, the country house of the banker Paul Bérard, a friend who was also buying his pictures. This field was probably painted in the countryside around the estate, and it has none of the polish a paying sitter expected. There is no figure and no incident in it, only a line of trees on the left, a hill behind and a wide sky. Renoir laid it in with very thin paint he called his “juices”, letting the white priming show through in places. Then, over the blurred gold of the wheat, he flicked pinkish-white strokes for the ears, with small touches of red and green among them.