Description
View of Bougival – a pale sandy shore under a bright sky
| Year of creation: | 1873 |
| Original size: | 57.2 cm x 49.5 cm |
| Painting style: | Impressionism |
| Original technique: | Oil on canvas |
| Located: | Milwaukee Art Museum |
View of Bougival is an oil painting by Pierre-Auguste Renoir, made in 1873. The original measures 57.2 x 49.5 cm, is catalogued as M2001.161 and hangs in the Milwaukee Art Museum. Our oil painting on canvas View of Bougival is worked by hand in oil on canvas, in eight sizes from 70 x 60 to 150 x 130 cm.
Bougival, on the Seine west of Paris, was a favourite place for Sunday outings, and Renoir painted it more than once. This view is neither a dance nor a figure scene but a quiet bank with a few boats and a dog in the sun.
A white dog with brown patches at the centre
A broad sandy bank opens across the bottom, with a white dog with brown patches lying at the centre and the dark hull of a boat drawn up at the left edge. Behind it, under dark trees, stands a wooden structure whose red-brown steps run down to the water, with pale cloth hanging beside it. At the foot of the steps a woman in a long white dress and dark hat stands with a second figure. To the right the Seine opens out: barges and rowing boats in red, blue and black lie moored along the bank, and beyond the water a low row of pale houses and green trees closes the far side under a light sky.
Why hand-painted, not a print
Our version is not a print. The sand in the foreground is laid in with broad, soft passes, while the boats, the steps and the figures are set down with sharp short strokes – a few marks for each object. A hand-painted painting keeps that difference in the way the paint sits, which printed paper cannot imitate.
In the room
The subject is light, sandy and green and settles a room, so it repays hanging in a living room, a hallway or a bedroom. For a limited wall we suggest 80 x 70 cm, for a more extensive one 120 x 100 cm; on a broad wall 150 x 130 cm works, with 130 x 110 cm as the step before. Under 70 x 60 cm the dog on the shore disappears and the scene is left without its one living point.
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. View of Bougival 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: sandy shore near Bougival, with a white dog and the hull of a boat, 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 130 cm, another size on request
- Detail worth knowing: the white dog at the centre is the scene’s only living point – without it the shore is just a band of sand between water and green
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