Fog on Guernsey (Brouillard à Guernsey)

"Fog on Guernsey" shows us the artist Pierre-Auguste Renoir in unfamiliar territory in terms of both technique and subject matter.

In the late summer months of 1883, Renoir enjoyed a brief sojourn on the British island of Guernsey, where he painted approximately fifteen pictures of the area surrounding Moulin Huet Bay. During this period, Renoir devoted considerable time to "Fog on Guernsey."

Here, active, richly layered brushstrokes in the foreground give way to more fluid lines in the far bank. In this manner, Renoir replicated the obscuring effects of morning fog. Thus the artist reconciled the temporary and the permanent, the effervescence of the atmosphere and the solidity of the landscape.

Renoir constantly sought to internalize and reinterpret the work of his Impressionist colleagues. "Fog on Guernsey" may be a nod to Claude Monet’s "Fisherman’s Cottage on the Cliffs at Varangéville" of 1882, in the collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Though the compositions of the two paintings are certainly similar, the color palette and the way in which paint is applied in "Fog on Guernsey" make it very much an example of Renoir’s particular style.