La Grenouillère Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841-1919)

Description of Pierre-Auguste Renoir’s painting The Froglet

The painting was painted by Auguste Renoir in 1869.

"Froggy" was the name of a cafe on the water that was located on a pontoon moored to one of the banks of the French River Seine. This pontoon was connected to the shore by a small bridge for crossing. Here on the river were islands where Parisians liked to relax. It is these places are described in the works of Zola and Maupassant.

"The Froglet was a place where girls of easy virtue gathered. They were called "frogs." They came here from the suburbs, along with hooligans and scoundrels. Sometimes they came alone, hoping to find customers. They wore incredibly provocative outfits to get the men to bite.

Two painters Renoir and Monet in 1869 began work on paintings with identical subjects. The styles were incredibly close. The café was depicted in both paintings from the same point of view. Renoir was more fascinated by the depiction of people, while Monet was more interested in nature and landscapes. Importantly, Renoir paints all the details of the outfits with incredible care.

Renoir conveys the incredible beauty of light, which intricately plays on the water surface.

The painter did not at all seek to characterize the great depth of his characters. He did not try to reveal their psychology and inner world. In this sense his art is limited. But it was he who told about completely unknown people with incredible warmth, charming softness and cordiality. He showed how charming the youth, beautiful and graceful any person, how natural their quite ordinary movements. Renoir knew how to pick up fleeting expressions of the face, full of vividness of the glitter of eyes, the slightest shade of moods that possesses him.

For a very long time the painter was not recognized and he was practically not allowed at exhibitions of official level.