Picking Flowers

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Artist: Pierre-Auguste Renoir (French, 1841–1919)
Medium: oil on canvas
Size: overall: 54.3 x 65.2 cm (21 3/8 x 25 11/16 in.); framed: 78.1 x 88.9 x 7.6 cm (30 3/4 x 35 x 3 in.)
Museum: National Gallery of Art
Rights: CC0 — no rights reserved

A light-skinned man and woman stand looking at each other, surrounded by blooming flowers and lush green trees in this square landscape painting. The palette is dominated by shades of vibrant green and blue, and is loosely painted with daubs and short strokes, making details indistinct. The people stand to our left of center and both are dressed in navy blue. The man stands facing our right, almost in profile, and bends forward slightly with one hand gesturing toward the flowers.

He wears a vest and trousers, a white shirt, and a butterscotch-gold hat. The woman stands near him to our right, and faces us with her head turned to look at the man. She wears a long gown, a cherry-red hat, andwhat appears to be a denim-blue and cherry-red scarf around her neck. The trees fill right half of the painting, and the profusion of flowering bushes closest to us almost spans the width of the scene.

Their blooms are suggested with touches of rose and petal pink, cream white, mustard yellow, and azure blue. More flowering bushes behind the man and woman are suggested by loosely painted areas of parchment white and laurel green, with scattered dots of poppy red. Pale pink clouds swirl through the topaz-blue sky in the upper left corner. The artist signed the painting in the lower right, “Renoir.”