Renoir's realism bears in spite of all, the imprint of the lyric spirit
and of sweetness. It has neither the nervous veracity of Manet, nor the
bitterness of Degas, who both love their epoch and find it interesting
without idealising it and who have the vision of psychologist novelists.
Before everything else he is a painter. What he sees in the _Bal au
Moulin de la Galette_, are not the stigmata of vice and impudence, the
ridiculous and the sad sides of the doubtful types of this low resort.
He sees the gaiety of Sundays, the flashes of the sun, the oddity of a
crowd carried away by the rhythm of the valses, the laughter, the
clinking of glasses, the vibrating and hot atmosphere; and he applies
to this spectacle of joyous vulgarity his gifts as a sumptuous
colourist, the arabesque of the lines, the gracefulness of his bathers,
and the happy eurythmy of his soul. The straw hats are changed into
gold, the blue jackets are sapphires, and out of a still exact realism
is born a poem of light. The _Déjeûner des Canotiers_ is a subject which
has been painted a hundred times, either for the purpose of studying
popular types, or of painting white table-cloths amidst sunny foliage.
Yet Renoir is the only painter who has raised this small subject to the
proportions and the style of a large canvas, through the pictorial charm
and the masterly richness of the arrangement. The _Box_, conceived in a
low harmony, in a golden twilight, is a work worthy of Reynolds. The
pale and attentive face of the lady makes one think of the great English
master's best works; the necklace, the flesh, the flounce of lace and
the hands are marvels of skill and of taste, which the greatest modern
virtuosos, Sargent and Besnard, have not surpassed, and, as far as the
man in the background is concerned, his white waistcoat, his
dress-coat, his gloved hand would suffice to secure the fame of a
painter. The _Sleeping Woman_, the _First Step_, the _Terrace_, and the
decorative _Dance_ panels reveal Renoir as an _intimiste_ and as an