Pierre-Auguste Renoir, a French Impressionist born in 1841, painted Bal du Moulin de la Galette in 1876. The oil on canvas measures 131.0 x 175.0 cm and hangs in the Musée d'Orsay in Paris. The painting shows a crowded open-air dance in a garden under trees, lit by dappled sunlight.
What Bal du Moulin de la Galette shows
Looking at the picture, you see a crowded open-air dance in a garden under trees, with dozens of people. In the right foreground a group sits around a green table with glasses and a carafe: young women and men in dark suits and straw hats. Two young women hold the foreground centre. One sits on a bench in a blue-and-pink striped dress, while another in dark clothes leans over her shoulder. To the left a couple dances: a woman in a pale pink dress and a man in a dark suit. In the middle ground many more couples dance; the men wear dark suits, top hats and boaters. Overhead strings of round white globe lamps hang on posts, and a building with a green roof appears at the back left. Dappled sunlight falls through the leaves, leaving patches of light on the ground, clothes and faces. The palette moves between blue, black, pink, white and yellow; Renoir's brushwork is loose and feathery, and the background blurs.
When and why it was painted
By 1876, Renoir was a central figure in the Impressionist group in Paris. He participated in the second Impressionist exhibition that same year, alongside other painters who shared his interest in modern life. The Moulin de la Galette was a popular open-air dance hall in Montmartre, where working-class Parisians gathered on Sunday afternoons. Renoir's subject was the moving crowd in the dappled shade. The subject, with its modern clothes, casual poses and changing sunlight, fitted the Impressionist goal of painting contemporary life as it looked at a particular moment. Several of the figures were posed by his friends, and he treated their faces and dresses with the same loose brushwork as the leaves and lamp globes above.
Seeing it at home
When you consider a hand-painted copy of Bal du Moulin de la Galette, compare the overall shape with the original 131.0 x 175.0 cm canvas. The copy should keep the blue, black, pink, white and yellow range and the soft, blurred background. Look for the dappled patches of light across clothes and faces, and for loose, feathery brushwork rather than hard edges.