Two Sisters (On the Terrace)

Renoir painted Two Sisters (On the Terrace) in 1881, on the terrace of a restaurant on the Seine island of Chatou, west of Paris. He was 40 years old and had just returned from a trip to Italy, where he had studied Raphael and the Renaissance masters. The trip had convinced him that Impressionism had gone too far in dissolving form, and he was beginning to paint with more structure and more careful drawing. Two Sisters is one of the first paintings of this transitional period. The painting shows two young women on a terrace overlooking the Seine. The woman at the left, seated, wears a red hat and a blue coat, with a basket of yarn on her lap. The woman at the right, standing, wears a blue hat and a light blue dress, with her arm around her companion's shoulder. They are not actually sisters: the title was given by Renoir, who was interested in the visual relationship between the two figures rather than their biological one. Behind them, the river and the trees of the far bank are painted in loose, impressionist strokes of green and blue. Renoir was at a turning point in 1881. He had been an Impressionist since the first group exhibition in 1874, painting with the loose, broken brushwork and high-keyed palette that defined the movement. But his trip to Italy in the winter of 1881-82 changed his direction. He saw Raphael in Rome and Ingres in Florence, and he came back convinced that he needed to draw better and to paint with more solid forms. The paintings he produced after this trip, which scholars call his Ingres period or his dry period, are more carefully drawn and more smoothly painted than his earlier work. Two Sisters, painted just before the trip, sits on the cusp: the figures are more solid than his work of the 1870s, but the background is still pure Impressionism. Oil on canvas, 100 by 80 centimeters. Renoir painted the figures with a careful, controlled touch, building the faces and hands in smooth layers of warm flesh tone. The red and blue of the clothing are applied in thicker, more direct strokes, with the colors mixed on the canvas rather than on the palette. The background is painted in loose, rapid strokes of green and blue, with the trees and river suggested rather than described. The contrast between the carefully painted figures and the freely painted background is the key to the painting's effect. The vertical format and warm palette make this print work well in a living room, bedroom, or hallway. The reds, blues, and greens pair with warm white walls, natural wood, and traditional furniture. The 16x20 or 18x24 size gives the figures room to read. The painting has a warm, intimate quality that suits rooms with a personal mood. The painting entered the Art Institute of Chicago's collection in 1933, as part of the Mr. and Mrs. Lewis Larned Coburn Memorial Collection. It is one of the most popular paintings in the museum. This is a public domain artwork, scanned from the original at the Art Institute of Chicago. We print it on archival matte paper at sizes from 8x10 to 18x24 inches, framed or unframed. The image is printed at full resolution with no cropping.