"[Renoir]
rarely worked on one canvas at a time, and Nini dans le Jardin, signed
but not dated, belongs to the period immediately before work on Le
Moulin de la Galette began in earnest. Inspired by Monet's work at Argenteuil,
Renoir had been experimenting since the early 1870s with the motif of young women
in the garden: in size, format, and orientation, Nini dans le Jardin may
be loosely grouped with Woman with a Black Dog, 1874 (formerly, Charles Clore
Collection, London) and the radiant Les
Parapluies of 1878 (sale, Christie's, May 11,1988, lot 15). These paintings
are identical in size (24 by 20 inches); each explores the problem of integrating
the clothed female figure in ambient daylight and achieving a harmony between
elegant Parisienne and exuberant
nature.
Even more closely related is Young Girl on the
Beach, which was probably painted at the same session: there, the model, Nini
Lopez, sits on a similar garden chair wearing identical dress, but her presence
is more assertive, now the chief element in the composition. Both paintings convey
the delight that Renoir experienced in the large garden at the rue Cortot. Georges
Rivière, who had accompanied Renoir in his search for the ideal Montmartre
studio, recalled that "as soon as Renoir entered the house, he was charmed by
the view of this garden, which looked like a beautiful abandoned park. Once we
had passed through the narrow hallway, we stood before a vast uncultivated lawn
dotted with poppies, convolvulus, and daisies." Beyond this, Rivière continued,
lay a beautiful allée planted with trees stretching the full length of
the garden--this was the view that Renoir used for his celebrated painting La Balançoire (Musee d'Orsay, Paris)--and at the end was a fruit and vegetable
patch with dense bushes and poplar trees. It is difficult to know exactly which
corner of the garden is represented in this painting, although Nini does appear
to be sitting at the edge of an untidy lawn.
"In Nini dans le Jardin, which should be
dated around 1875-76, Renoir's handling is energized, nervous, and experimental.
He makes no attempt to unify the paint surface of his canvas: ridges of rich impasto
sit alongside areas of barely covered ground. His color is nonetheless applied
in dabs and strokes of varying touch, appropriate to the forms they describe.
Thus, the leafy bushes in the background are a mosaic of greens, browns, and ochers;
the sky in the upper left a series of blue strokes placed over the greens--the
most obvious of Renoir's borrowings from Monet. Nini herself is painted more emphatically,
the violet blue of her hat and underskirt the densest blocks of color in the composition.
Nini's costume is very similar to, if not identical to, the one she wears in Departure
from the Conservatory. Comparison helps establish the design of Nini's ensemble
as it appears in Nini dans le Jardin: dark tunic over a light pinafore
dress, with dark underskirt, this last element just visible through the grass
and plants.
"It is clear, however, that costume is of little
concern to Renoir here. His chief interest is to record the sunlight as it filters
through bushes and trees onto the diminutive and fashionably dressed Parisienne.
He had already investigated these effects on the nude; Nini dans le Jardin
marks an early stage in such treatment of the dressed figure. Somewhat tentatively,
Renoir painted the reflections of foliage on Nini's face and the larger shadows
on her dress. Her golden brown tresses are overwhelmed by the greens and browns
of the background foliage; the forms of her dress dissolve in the dappled light
and shadow.
"Those elements of Renoir's luminist vocabulary
that would cause such outrage in 1877--his colored shadows, the violet tonality
of his outdoor scenes--are present in this early example: for example, the line
of chartreuse that defines Nini's cheek and chin as well as the mauve patches
of shadow on her dress. Although his plein-air painting still owed much to Monet,
... in the paintings he made in the garden of the rue Cortot, Renoir developed
what Théodore Duret would consider his most striking contribution to Impressionism:
depicting the human figure in the endlessly changing, mobile light of nature.
Renoir's exploration of light dancing over the human figure would achieve full
expression in La Balançoire and Le Moulin de la Galette. In Nini in
the Garden such effects are rendered a little hesitantly, but with the daring
of experiment..."