Paris Art: Your Choice

My favorite piece of artwork was by an artist named Auguste Renoir.  The painting is called La Lecture.  This painting is depicting two young girls who are both reading one book.  One girl is blond and the other one is blond.  The light catches on the cheek of the blond girls face.  She is definitely the "main character" in the painting.  The brush strokes are long and strategic, using many different colors to create depth and structure to the painting. The different colors also creates a sort of dreamlike essence that makes the painting somewhat magical and nostalgic.  The brunette girl has her arm across the back of the chair leaning over and has quite red cheeks.  

I am not sure if this painting is important or not based on looking at it right away.  However, I believe that he was somewhat of a leader in painting people that could be potentially close to him or people who were not adults, famous people getting portraits, or biblical scenes. He painted these two girls that were young and youthful, not necessarily doing anything important and also not seemingly important.  They are ordinary children doing ordinary things.  From further research I learned Auguste Renoir like painting things from the world around him.  He drew inspiration from things he saw rather than things he imagined.  

In my opinion it did not necessarily contribute to Paris's status as a cultural capital.  It is a beautiful piece and tells a story that I connect with but it isn't something that is well known to the rest of the world.  I do believe that Auguste Renoir did contribute with art in general by creating a more well known piece of art that shows children doing normal things.  This was somewhat revolutionary for art at the time.  This creates a different culture for the art world which helps to create a culture for a city especially a city like Paris.  I love the aspect of having normal people doing normal things that helps to connect with normal people.