Dance at the Moulin de la Galette that is, Dance at the Cookie Mill, is the most famous painting of Renoir and one of the Masterpieces of the Impressionismbut no matter how hard we look, we don’t see mills or cookies anywhere!
So… Why is it called Dance at the Moulin de la Galette? You will quickly clear your doubts.
Montmartre and the windmills
Montmartre It is today a beautiful neighborhood in Paris where millions of tourists come every year. It sits on a hill where there were once about thirty windmills that were used for many activities, such as grinding wheat grains or pepper. By the end of the 19th century most of the mills had disappeared, but there were still a couple of them known as the Radet Mill and the Blute-Fin Mill, which belonged to the Debray family.
At that time, while Paris became a beautiful city of wide avenues and modern buildings, Montmartre continued to be a rural and humble area but with a lot of charm. On holidays, many Parisians went there to spend an afternoon in the countryside and enjoy the beautiful views.
The great idea of the millers
One day, the Debrays, very business savvy, had the idea of making delicious cookies or breads with the rye flour they ground themselves. They sold them along with a glass of fresh milk to anyone who came to see Paris from the fantastic viewpoint of one of their mills.
This simple idea was so successful that after a while they decided to expand the business in a big way and transform the mill into a bar and party room with gardens. They named the entire venue Le Moulin de la Galette, that is, The Cookie Mill.
The Moulin de la Galette becomes fashionable
It quickly became the favorite place for painters, musicians, workers, soldiers, dressmakers… who came there on Sundays and holidays to have fun. There was a Winter Room for cold days, but when the weather was sunny, snacks and parties were held outside, where young people spent the hours in the gardens dancing to the rhythm of the orchestra.
The dances began at three in the afternoon and lasted until midnight. When darkness arrived, the revelry continued thanks to the lighting of gas lamps, since electric lighting did not yet exist in the cities.
Renoir He wasn’t the only one who loved going there. For years, many prestigious artists (musicians, writers…) lived in this lively neighborhood, frequented the Moulin de la Galette and captured it in their works. Among his professional colleagues were Toulouse-Lautrec, Van Gogh, Pablo Picasso…The best of the art world of the time!
What did Renoir paint in his work Dance at the Moulin de la Galette?
In this painting Renoir represented one of those fun summer afternoons in the gardens of the Moulin de la Galette. The windmills that give rise to the name of the picnic area cannot be seen because he only painted a part of the garden and specifically, the moment of the dance. The original wooden mills were located very close by.
Do you think this painting inspires sadness? Boredom? Is it a pessimistic picture?…
Of course not! Quite the opposite. The great Renoir tried to convey optimism and joy of life. As you can see, people are dancing, chatting animatedly and seem to be having a great time. Seeing this image we can get an idea of how the people around him had fun on their days off; In fact, several people who appear in it are good friends of his whom he wanted to portray. To show joy, he used bright colors.
He also gave a lot of importance to light and how it reflects on people and objects. Instead of drawing and outlining the figures, he created them based on spots to create a sensation of movement and luminosity in the scene. This is not only characteristic of Renoir, but of all Impressionist artists. Landscapes, outdoor life, color, light, the good moments that life offers… were generally the favorite themes of all of them.
Did you paint the painting during the dance?
Impressionist painters used to paint from life instead of locking themselves in their studio. In the case of this work, it is not very clear that Renoir painted it directly in the Moulin de la Galette picnic area. There is a very similar previous painting, smaller and less finished, that he surely painted during the dance and that he later took to his studio and used as a model for the second and definitive painting, which is the one we all know. In the photographs you can see that they are very similar although there are differences between the two.
The Moulin de la Galette closed in 1915 and the old mills that became so famous no longer exist. If one day you have the opportunity to walk through Paris, in its place you will find a modern restaurant baptized with the old name Le Moulin de la Galette and a false mill that reminds us of a place and a time that served as a great inspiration for art and that forms part of the recent history of Paris.
By the way… Nowadays Montmartre is also known as The Painters’ Quarter.
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