GENERAL DESCRIPTION
Pierre-Auguste Renoir and Claude Monet painted together on many occasions, including at Argenteuil, where Monet lived. The products of their work were never closer than the similar paintings they made of the duck pond at Argenteuil, in which the short brushstrokes, colors, and points of view are almost identical. The paintings are often quoted to prove the collaborative relationship between the two men. Renoir—the inveterate painter of the human form—added a little flat boat on the right with two or three people in it.
Excerpt from
Bonnie Pitman, ed., "The Duck Pond," in Dallas Museum of Art: A Guide to the Collection (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2012), 198.
NOTES
Created in 1873
2015 Reves install:
During the late 1860s, many of the impressionists worked en plein air, or out of doors, attacking the problem of how to capture the shimmer of reflected light and the intricacy of color in nature. Starting in 1869, Claude Monet and Pierre-Auguste Renoir often worked side-by-side, and in 1873 they spent much of their time working around Monet's home in Argenteuil, a suburb of Paris.
On one occasion, they both painted a rustic house screened by trees, on the far side of a small duck pond. Monet completed one painting of this motif, illustrated below, and Renoir created two, including this canvas. Both artists were working at this time with a similar brushstroke, covering the surface with tiny, discrete flecks of paint, and both had begun to break down each area into its many constituent hues. Forty years later, when both artists were shown this painting, neither could say which had made it.
Richard Brettell, Impressionist Paintings, Drawings, and Sculpture from the Wendy and Emery Reves Collection (Dallas Museum of Art, 1995), 53.
Renoir and Monet began portraying the same landscape in 1869, when they simultaneously painted at the famous waterside café La Grenouillère (The Frogpond) at Bougival. This collaboration has often been analyzed and used to point out the real aesthetic differences between the two artists - Monet, the painter of light and water, and Renoir, the painter of the human form.
The two artists painted together on many subsequent occasions. In 1873, they made a single excursion during which Renoir painted two landscapes and Monet completed one. The Reves "Duck Pond" is one of this trio of paintings; Renoir's second also resides in Dallas, in a private collection. Monet's single canvas remains in a Parisian private collection. The Reves Renoir and the Monet have often been compared in print, most powerfully by John Rewald, the preeminent historian of Impressionism and the author of the standard history of the movement. When shown side by side on a printed page, the two works appear startlingly similar, each artist having succumbed to a desire to show nature in all its visual complexity. The tree branches seem to move in the breeze, and the surface of the pond trembles in an agitated fashion. Both pictures have a restiveness that many early critics of Impressionism found at once ugly and resolutely modern. In their view, the nervousness of the paintings was an analogue for the ills of contemporary urban society.
Interestingly, no student of landscape imagery has located the motif painted by Renoir and Monet, which is most likely in the region of Argenteuil, where Monet lived and where both painters worked in the summers of 1873 and 1874. Fortunately, Monet dated his painting, allowing us to position all works in the first of these two collaborative summers. Their friend, Camille Pissarro, must have seen these works, because he began his own variants of the composition in the summer of 1874, when he painted a series representing a duck pond in rural Brittany. All three artists relished the picturesque activity of such farm-pond scenes and painted them as an alternative to their more famous representations of bourgeois flower gardens and leisure boating.
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Depicted location and place of origin: Argenteuil (inhabited place/France): TGN: 7008019
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WEB RESOURCES
- National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC~Learn more about the Impressionists at Argenteuil from the National Gallery of Art.
- The Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, MA~Check out Monet's painting of the same pond from 1874.
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General Description
Pierre-Auguste Renoir and Claude Monet painted together on many occasions, including at Argenteuil, where Monet lived. The products of their work were never closer than the similar paintings they made of the duck pond at Argenteuil, in which the short brushstrokes, colors, and points of view are almost identical. The paintings are often quoted to prove the collaborative relationship between the two men. Renoir—the inveterate painter of the human form—added a little flat boat on the right with two or three people in it.
Excerpt from
Bonnie Pitman, ed., "The Duck Pond," in Dallas Museum of Art: A Guide to the Collection (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2012), 198.
Fun Facts
Archival Resources
Web Resources
- National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC~Learn more about the Impressionists at Argenteuil from the National Gallery of Art.
- The Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, MA~Check out Monet's painting of the same pond from 1874.
Notes
Created in 1873
2015 Reves install:
During the late 1860s, many of the impressionists worked en plein air, or out of doors, attacking the problem of how to capture the shimmer of reflected light and the intricacy of color in nature. Starting in 1869, Claude Monet and Pierre-Auguste Renoir often worked side-by-side, and in 1873 they spent much of their time working around Monet's home in Argenteuil, a suburb of Paris.
On one occasion, they both painted a rustic house screened by trees, on the far side of a small duck pond. Monet completed one painting of this motif, illustrated below, and Renoir created two, including this canvas. Both artists were working at this time with a similar brushstroke, covering the surface with tiny, discrete flecks of paint, and both had begun to break down each area into its many constituent hues. Forty years later, when both artists were shown this painting, neither could say which had made it.
Richard Brettell, Impressionist Paintings, Drawings, and Sculpture from the Wendy and Emery Reves Collection (Dallas Museum of Art, 1995), 53.
Renoir and Monet began portraying the same landscape in 1869, when they simultaneously painted at the famous waterside café La Grenouillère (The Frogpond) at Bougival. This collaboration has often been analyzed and used to point out the real aesthetic differences between the two artists - Monet, the painter of light and water, and Renoir, the painter of the human form.
The two artists painted together on many subsequent occasions. In 1873, they made a single excursion during which Renoir painted two landscapes and Monet completed one. The Reves "Duck Pond" is one of this trio of paintings; Renoir's second also resides in Dallas, in a private collection. Monet's single canvas remains in a Parisian private collection. The Reves Renoir and the Monet have often been compared in print, most powerfully by John Rewald, the preeminent historian of Impressionism and the author of the standard history of the movement. When shown side by side on a printed page, the two works appear startlingly similar, each artist having succumbed to a desire to show nature in all its visual complexity. The tree branches seem to move in the breeze, and the surface of the pond trembles in an agitated fashion. Both pictures have a restiveness that many early critics of Impressionism found at once ugly and resolutely modern. In their view, the nervousness of the paintings was an analogue for the ills of contemporary urban society.
Interestingly, no student of landscape imagery has located the motif painted by Renoir and Monet, which is most likely in the region of Argenteuil, where Monet lived and where both painters worked in the summers of 1873 and 1874. Fortunately, Monet dated his painting, allowing us to position all works in the first of these two collaborative summers. Their friend, Camille Pissarro, must have seen these works, because he began his own variants of the composition in the summer of 1874, when he painted a series representing a duck pond in rural Brittany. All three artists relished the picturesque activity of such farm-pond scenes and painted them as an alternative to their more famous representations of bourgeois flower gardens and leisure boating.
Catalogue essays
Artist/designers
Cultures
Geography
Depicted location and place of origin: Argenteuil (inhabited place/France): TGN: 7008019
Process/materials
Historical periods
Individuals
Subject terms
RELATED OBJECTS
PROVENANCE
AUDIO ASSETS
VIDEO ASSETS
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