Renoir once observed, “I have a predilection for painting that lends joyousness to a wall.” And that’s what he does to the National Gallery. There’s wall upon wall of cheerful human interactions in this show — 43 pictures in all — of pleasurable encounters between men and women, dances, boating parties and what feels like several good lunches, or rather the end of lunch when the liqueurs were out and the men were lighting their cigarettes. Among the Impressionists there were some who focused on absinthe, despair and lust; Renoir is one for the kindlier emotions, the pleasures of life.
Yet the self-portrait at the start seems at odds with that cheerful outlook: the young man is strained, haunted. He knew what poverty was; he just chose not to dwell on it. Renoir came from a working-class family.
