"Le Moulin de la Galette"
Renoir
1876
131cm x 175cm
oil on canvas
 Here I see people dancing. It seems like they are all rich in something, be it dollars (francs)  or happiness, clearly they seem to be having a good time.  I am dislike negative depressing images, having seen my fair share these last 20 years. I was attracted to this painting because of the extensive use of dark blue shadows in the book. Though I would normally assign the color blue to a negative emotion, I cannot find a reason to do so in this image. It reminds me a lot of sitting outside on a sunny day, closing my eyes for a bit and when I open them, all things I see, especially shadows, appear to have a blue tint.  I am told this falls into the category of Impressionism but to me it has a certain undeniable reality that I appreciate more than say, Leonardo for example. After looking this image up on the web, I was nearly emotionally crushed to find  it doesn't appear to be blue at all.  I think I like the book picture better... However,  I just read the book paragraph and am happy to see Renoir refused to use black...so now I like this painting even more.

Jeffrey Torres