Pierre-Auguste Renoir – Mont Sainte-Victoire

Mont Sainte-Victoire – a pale violet mass against a drawn sky

Mont Sainte-Victoire is an oil painting by Pierre-Auguste Renoir, made around 1888–1889. The original measures 53.0 x 64.1 cm, is catalogued as 1980.12.14 and hangs in the Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven. Our art reproduction Mont Sainte-Victoire is painted by hand in oil on canvas, in eight sizes from 70 x 60 to 150 x 120 cm.

It is the same mountain Paul Cézanne painted. Renoir and Cézanne were working near Aix in these years, which is why the motif appears in both. The difference is in the handling: Cézanne builds the mountain from planes and blocks, Renoir from soft, small strokes, so that its mass almost dissolves into the air around it.

The sky in long slanting strokes

The pale violet-grey mass of the mountain stands left of centre against a sky brushed in long diagonal strokes of blue and white. Below it the land falls away in low ridges of rose, blue and ochre, with a scatter of small buildings in the middle distance and one red roof catching the light. The foreground is a stand of olive and pine – blue-green, silver and dark green – over a field of dry ochre grass laid in with long horizontal strokes.

Why hand-painted, not a print

Our version is not a print. Sky and grass are painted in long strokes all running one way, each of which stays separately visible, while the foliage is built from short crossing touches. A hand-painted painting keeps that difference in the way the paint sits, which printed paper cannot imitate.

In the room

The subject is quiet, blue and ochre and copes well even on a wall with less light, so it works in a living room, a bedroom or an office. 80 x 65 cm is enough on a smaller wall, 120 x 100 cm on a larger one; on a broad wall it carries 150 x 120 cm, with 130 x 110 cm in between. Under 70 x 60 cm the slanting strokes in the sky flatten out and the mountain loses the ground it stands against.

What you receive

We paint the canvas to order, by hand and for you alone, so every copy is made on its own; the canvas is usually painted and dried within three to four weeks. If you prefer, we will paint it in a size that is not on the list. Before despatch we send you a photograph of the finished canvas for your approval, and only then does the painting go out. Mont Sainte-Victoire arrives stretched on a wooden frame and ready to hang, wrapped in protective film and in rigid packaging, with no further stretching or finishing needed.

• Subject: Mont Sainte-Victoire against a sky drawn in strokes, Pierre-Auguste Renoir
• Technique: hand-painted oil painting on canvas, stretched on a wooden frame
• Sizes: 8 sizes, from 70 x 60 cm to 150 x 120 cm, another size on request
• Detail worth knowing: the sky is drawn in long slanting strokes of blue and white – it is that tilt that gives the mountain its quiet weight

See also:

• The Farm at Les Collettes, Cagnes
• Snow-covered Landscape
• Luncheon of the Boating Party