Girls in the Grass Arranging a Bouquet (Fillette couchée sur l'herbe et jeune fille arrangeant un bouquet)

Painted in 1890 and held at the Barnes Foundation, Girls in the Grass belongs to a period when Renoir had consciously moved away from the loose Impressionist brushstroke toward a more sculptural, classicising figure style he developed after his Italian journey of 1881–82, where he encountered Raphael and ancient fresco painting. By 1890 he was integrating this new solidity with his outdoor plein-air practice, placing rounded, full-bodied figures in sun-dappled grass settings. The subject—two young women casually arranged in a summer garden—is entirely characteristic of his mature period's preoccupation with femininity, nature, and sensory pleasure.

The figures are modelled with more volumetric solidity than his earlier Impressionist works, with smooth gradation in the flesh tones. Dappled light across the grass is rendered through short, varied strokes of green, yellow, and light blue, contrasting with the warmer, blended treatment of the figures themselves.