By the sea

Pierre Auguste Renoir painted a portrait of Aline Charigot in 1883, in the artwork titled By the Seashore. Renoir and Charigot finally married in 1890, after the artist became financially stable. She was the impressionist's muse and appears in many of his works, such as Country Dance and Motherhood, where the artist also portrayed his son Pierre.

The year in which Renoir painted By the Seashore represents a turning point that would mark his artistic career forever, as at this time he decided to take a completely different direction. In the early 1880s, the painter was considering whether he should reject the Impressionist movement he founded along with Claude Monet, Frederic Bazille and Alfred Sisley. As modern artists, they had different values from those of the Classical Academies, and were rarely accepted into the prestigious Paris Salon exhibition. In response to this, the Impressionist movement officially began when they organized an alternative art show called Salon des Refuses, meaning "Salon of the Rejected."

For about a decade, Renoir traveled to many places and studied traditional painting techniques, especially work from the Renaissance era. His trip to Italy was particularly inspiring, and he became passionate about Raphael's artworks in particular.

By the Seashore was painted on a vertical canvas, while Renoir placed Charigot centered in the composition, seated in a wicker chair. She looks kindly at the viewer with a shy smile and appears to be knitting. He wears fashionable clothes, with a decorative navy blue hat and many ruffles on his shirt. Renoir painted Aline Charigot with great detail and care, captivating her essences. The background is very reminiscent of the impressionist's previous work. He used broad, loose brushstrokes with brown, green, blue and orange pigments to portray the vegetated seashore. The distant background shows the blue and green sea, with sailboats and yellow mountain tops in the distance.