A Place Clichy

Renoir painted this around 1880, and the striking thing is how modern its framing feels. A young woman fills the foreground, cut off at the shoulder by the edge of the canvas as if she had just stepped into view, her face sharp while the whole Paris square behind her, the Place Clichy, dissolves into a bright blur of hats and movement. That way of seeing owed something to the new street photography and to the cropped, off-centre compositions of Japanese prints, both of which painters in Paris were studying closely. Renoir most likely worked it up in his studio nearby rather than on the spot. The picture has only carried the title Place Clichy since about 1900.