Houses in a Park (Maisons dans un parc)

Houses in a Park (Maisons dans un parc), 1911, belongs to Renoir's late group of park and garden landscape subjects at Cagnes that combine architectural elements—walls, roofs, facades—with the abundant vegetation of the Midi. The Provençal park or garden, with its mix of stone and greenery in brilliant southern light, became an important subject in his final decade, providing compositional structures that combined his landscape and architectural interests. The Barnes Foundation canvas shows the warm palette and loose handling characteristic of his 1910–12 production.

The white or pale stone of the park buildings provides a strongly lit architectural element against which the greens and blue-greens of the surrounding vegetation contrast vigorously. Renoir builds the foliage with overlapping strokes of varied greens while the architecture is handled with broader, firmer passages.