Claude Monet

The portraits Impressionists made of each other constitute a remarkable set of documents: the same people, observed by different eyes, producing images that capture not just individual appearance but the intellectual culture of a group. Renoir painted Monet around 1875, at the height of the Argenteuil collaboration when the two men were working in closest proximity — painting side by side on the Seine, sharing the same motifs and sometimes, in the celebrated double portrait at Argenteuil, the same compositional format from different positions. The relationship between Renoir and Monet was among the most productive friendships in modern art, each artist stimulated and supported by the other's approach. Renoir's Monet at the National Gallery of Art shows the painter at work — beard dark and full, eyes directed somewhere beyond the canvas — with the directness of genuine observation free from the social constraints of commissioned portraiture. The comparison with Monet's own self-portraits reveals how different two artists of the same movement can appear when painting themselves versus being painted by a friend: Monet's self-image is more formal and self-conscious than Renoir's version of him, which has the warmth of intimate knowledge.

Renoir renders Monet with the directness and warmth of a genuine likeness — this is a friend, not a commissioned sitter — capturing the darker, bearded features that distinguish Monet's appearance from the generalised female type of Renoir's commercial work. The handling is responsive and immediate, with the background kept loose to maintain the focus on Monet's face and figure.