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Thursday, June 19, 2014

A GIRL WITH A WATERING CAN

Marcia Norwood
America's STORYTELLER
Telling Untold Stories 
in Photographs, Prose and Public Speaking 



  A Girl With A Watering Can
http://tellmeastory-marcia.blogspot.com/
I fell in love when I was 16 years old with Pierre-Auguste Renoir's painting,  A Girl With A Watering Can 
It was displayed at the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C.  I purchased a postcard print of the painting.  I still treasure that postcard print 49 years later.   

The Impressionist painting, A Girl With A Watering Can, was painted by Renoir in 1876.  Renoir apparently painted it in Monet's famous garden at Argenteuil, France.

 
Argenteuil, France
CLICK on the link or COPY & PASTE a link in your browser:   
http://www.nga.gov/exhibitions/impr_intro.shtm 

 Map and Forecast
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http://www.weather-forecast.com/locations/Argenteuil
 
The girl wearing the blue dress holding the watering can is  Mademoiselle Leclere.  She is probably the daughter of one of the customers of Renoir's works, and most likely upper class.  

Mademoiselle Leclere must have posed for quite a long time for the portrait. The little girl is not looking directly at the audience, so although the picture was posed, it has a snapshot effect.

Rather than blend his colors,  Renoir  applied them in individual touches that dissolve edges that seem to shimmer with light.





National Gallery of Art
Washington, D.C.

image of A Girl with a Watering Can Auguste Renoir (artist)
French, 1841 - 1919
A Girl with a Watering Can, 1876
oil on canvas
overall: 100 x 73 cm (39 3/8 x 28 3/4 in.) framed: 125.7 x 97.5 x 6.9 cm (49 1/2 x 38 3/8 x 2 11/16 in.)
Chester Dale Collection
1963.10.206
On View
From the Tour: Mary Cassatt, Auguste Renoir

This painting has long been a favorite of visitors to the National Gallery of Art -- and it seems that Renoir painted it with exactly this hope, that it would please a large audience.

The first impressionist exhibition, in 1874, had brought Renoir and his fellow artists more notoriety than business, and the auction he optimistically organized for his own work the following year was a financial disaster. Unlike Cassatt, who had family wealth, Renoir, the son of a tailor, was in a constant struggle for money in his early career. He began to paint charming, light-filled scenes with women and children, like this one, in the hopes of increasing sales. He probably thought that the pretty child in her fancy dress might also attract portrait commissions.

Although it was landscape that had provided the first, and most important, inspiration for impressionism, Renoir's instinct always led him back to the figure.

The deep blue of the dress, the bright red of the bow and the girl's lips, and the cool greens of the lush garden behind her are all given a prismatic brilliance by Renoir's brushwork. Rather than blend his colors, Renoir has applied them in individual touches that dissolve edges and seem to shimmer with light.

Impressionism sought to capture the effect of light on the senses, communicating a visual signal with each stroke of the brush.

CLICK on the link or COPY & PASTE a link in your browser: 
http://www.nga.gov/collection/gallery/gg83/gg83-46681.html
  

From Wikipedia
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Girl_with_a_Watering_Can

A Girl with a Watering Can
Auguste Renoir - A Girl with a Watering Can - Google Art Project.jpg
Artist Pierre-Auguste Renoir
Year 1876
A Girl with a Watering Can is an Impressionist painting by Pierre-Auguste Renoir from 1876. The work was apparently painted in Monet's famous garden at Argenteuil. This painting is of Mademoiselle Leclere in her blue dress holding a watering can


 COLOR YOUR OWN VERSION OF THE PAINTING

Color your own version of A Girl With A Watering Can.
 Visit Monet's Garden
CLICK on the link or COPY & PASTE a link in your browser:  
http://giverny.org/gardens/fcm/visitgb.htm 
 Approximately 500 000 visitors discover Monet's gardens each year during the seven months that it is open.   

The Two Gardens
There are two parts in Monet's garden: 
a flower garden called Clos Normand in front of the house 
and a Japanese inspired water garden on the other side of the road. 
The two parts of Monet's garden contrast and complement one another.
Someday I will see  A Girl With A Watering Can again.
 
Someday I will visit Monet's Garden.
How about you?
What's your favorite painting? 

 Where do you dream of visiting? 


 Thanks for stopping by!

Come back often, and invite a friend!

Marcia (2 years old).  Copyright 1951 Marcia Norwood

 Marcia Norwood
America's STORYTELLER
Telling Untold Stories 
in Photographs, Prose and Public Speaking 

 


http://tellmeastory-marcia.blogspot.com/

1 comment:

  1. This painting is haunted idk when it was donated there but when I was a kid my grandma had this painting and she found it in an old storage shed and kept it, it haunted me because it was in my room, it would grab out at me and roll it's eyes and terroriZe me and slam the door shut. The painting got pawned off when she died when I was a kid so I wonder if she had the original one since it was haunted

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