This picture shows the view across Moulin Huet Bay on Guernsey. Renoir visited the island for six weeks in , and this is one of a group of paintings he produced during his stay. He was starting to break away from some of the techniques of the Impressionist approach to landscape painting, which involved producing pictures almost entirely out in the open air.
Instead he experimented with a return to the more traditional discipline of making oil sketches on site and a finished painting in the studio. This is one of those sketches, and the spontaneity with which it was made is palpable.
The figures are rendered with only a handful of brushstrokes, and the foam on the waves in the foreground is indicated with quick dabs and simple, wavy lines. It seems to have been made in one session: the figures were added while the paint layers of the sea were still wet.
Renoir visited the island for six weeks in September and October , and this is one of a group of paintings he produced during his stay. Consequently I have a source of real motifs, graceful, which I will be able to use.
The views of the sea allowed him to observe and try to capture the reflections on the surface of the water, a theme which had long fascinated him. This was a period when Renoir was starting to break away from some of the tenets and techniques of the Impressionist approach to landscape painting, which involved working mostly in the open air in order to capture the light effects as immediately as possible. He was now returning to a more traditional discipline: making oil sketches on site and making a finished painting in the studio.
