La bailarina

In April 1874 a group of painters rejected by the official Salon rented a photographer's studio in Paris and hung their own show. A critic mocked one of Monet's canvases as a mere impression, and the insult stuck as the name of a whole movement. Renoir sent seven pictures to that first exhibition, and this dancer was among them. Reviewers who brushed off the others often paused on her. The model was almost certainly Henriette Henriot, a young actress who sat for Renoir often in these years. Look at the skirt and you can see why people noticed. The tulle is barely painted at all, just thin dragged strokes that let the canvas breathe through the gauze.