Renoir met Claude Monet (1840-1926) in his youth, when he attended studios and studied at the École des Beaux-Arts de Paris. With Camille Pissarro (1830-1903) and Alfred Sisley (1839-1899), they formed the first nucleus of impressionists who renovated the technique and themes of painting of that time. In the group, Renoir was known for his scenes of Parisian cafés and bars as well as for his female nudes. He was interested in the depiction of the human figure, unlike the others, who were more concerned about capturing the visual sensation produced by the motif in the open air. The twelve paintings by Renoir in MASP’s collection cover almost all of the artist’s career, from his youth to his old age. In the work Girl with Flowers (1888), the painter uses a refined technique to portray a girl within the warm and luminous atmosphere of the European summer, when wheat ripens and is harvested. Despite the girl’s delicate face, Renoir used impasto in green tones to achieve the tactile sensation of the spikes of grain and the vegetation; it is almost possible to feel the movement of the tree branches in the wind or the texture of the wheat stalks the girl is holding.
— MASP Curatorial Team
By Luciano Migliaccio
According to Bardi and Camesasca (1979), the model was little Helyone, the youngest daughter of poet Catulle Mendès, depicted by Renoir, together with her sister, in another painting, dated 1888 (the Arnenberg Collection, London). Studies made by House (1985) stress the complex nature of the painting, with its wealth of quotations and ideas that point to the artist’s development. In 1888, after having been through a creativity crisis the previous year, Renoir, under pressure from Durand-Ruel to forsake the “Ingres-inspired” punctilious style, resumed the technique of his first period, as he wrote to his friend Bérard. However, the Masp painting evidences that it was not, strictly speaking, merely a return to his previous style, as stated by Renoir. Camesasca (1989) perceives in the painting a mood of melancholic solemnity, which shows a return to Corot and to French 18th-century painting. House suggests that the composition was influenced by the Torso of Woman in the Sun (Musée d’Orsay), painted by Renoir in 1875, although in the latter the body is clearly separated from the background and there is not the play between the blue and green hues, which cause the figure to reflect the variations of light and foliage. The diffused light of the previous painting is replaced by a constant vibration that does not meld the body with its natural setting. This new structural role of color is probably a consequence of association with Cézanne, whom Renoir admired and with whom he worked in Aix-en-Provence, between 1888 and 1889.
— Luciano Migliaccio, 1998
