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THE PAINTING Dance At The Moulin De La Galette

In his final years, even when he was crippled by muscular rheumatism, the French master found ways of being one with his art.

When it became too painful to even hold a brush in his hand, he navigated towards sculpture; with the help of two young sculptors with whom he communicated with exceptional facility he created several works of beauty.

Renoir never gave up painting though. On the last day of his life too he painted holding the brush between his twisted fingers.

Renoir’s best paintings are remembered for featuring extraordinarily effervescent portraits, splendid nudes, vibrant landscapes, lively sea-scapes, and colourful still lifes.

“The work of art must seize upon you, wrap you up in itself and carry you away,” he would say. “It is the means by which the artist conveys his passion. It is the current which he puts forth, which sweeps you along in his passion.”

‘Dance At The Moulin De La Galette’ has often been hailed as the most beautiful picture of the 19th Century.

Painted by Renoir in 1876, it depicts a lively Sunday afternoon at a dance hall in Montmartre.

In its series titled ‘Private Life Of A Masterpiece’, a BBC documentary looks at this painting closely revealing not only the celebratory aspects of Renoir’s painting but also tracing the bloody and turbulent times which Paris was still recovering from, in the mid-1870s.

The engrossing tale of ‘Dance At The Moulin De La Galette’ can be watched on BBC World at 5.40 p.m. on January 19; it will be repeated at 3.40 p.m. and 10.40 p.m. on January 20.

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