Pierre-Auguste Renoir – Promenade Undergrowth

Promenade Undergrowth – a canvas filled with foliage

Promenade Undergrowth is an oil painting on canvas by Pierre-Auguste Renoir, painted in 1910. The original measures 46.0 x 55.0 cm, is recorded under inventory number MNR 207, is in the custody of the Musée d’Orsay and is shown at the Renoir museum in Cagnes-sur-Mer. Our canvas wall art Promenade Undergrowth is a hand-painted painting in oils.

Three small figures on the path, barely made out

The canvas is almost entirely filled with foliage. Among small green, yellow and blue strokes, three tiny figures on a path can just be made out at the bottom — one in red, two in white. Renoir is not painting a scene here but the light breaking through the canopy: contours are given up altogether, and space is made out of differences in colour alone.

Why hand-painted, not a print

Our version is not a print. With a subject like this the difference is at its plainest: the dense foliage is hundreds of separate touches, set down one after another with a brush. The paint keeps a grain and depth that printed paper cannot imitate, and every art reproduction we make therefore leaves the studio as a single object rather than a copy.

In the room

A green, quiet subject with no marked centre works well where a painting must not take over the room – in a hallway, a bedroom or an office. In a room with dark furniture it lightens the wall; in a bright Scandinavian interior it adds colour without restlessness, because no stroke pulls the eye to itself. The upright format takes a narrower wall too, between two windows or beside a door. For a bedroom 75 x 90 cm is enough, for a living room we suggest 90 x 110 cm, and on a large wall 120 x 150 cm works, where the three figures on the path can be made out among the leaves. Below 60 x 70 cm the figures disappear and only a green area is left.

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. Promenade Undergrowth 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: path beneath the canopy, with three barely visible figures among the leaves, Pierre-Auguste Renoir
• Technique: hand-painted oil painting on canvas, stretched on a wooden frame
• Sizes: 8 sizes, from 60 x 70 cm to 120 x 150 cm, another size on request
• Detail worth knowing: Renoir is not painting a scene here but light breaking through the canopy – the figures are a consequence, not the subject

See also:

• Still Life with Apples and Almonds
• Flowers in a Vase
• The Large Bathers