Dance At The Moulin De La Galette by Renoir

The Moulin de la Galette was one of 21 works shown by Renoir at the third Impressionist exhibition in 1877. Every Sunday afternoon young people from the north of Paris contributed in the dance-hall and in the courtyard behind it in fine weather. Most of the figures in Renoir's work, rather than being habitués of the Moulin were in fact portraits of his friends, with the occasional professional model posing for him.

The scene which Renoir has painted in this work is not an authentic representation of the clientele of the Moulin, but rather a scrupulously organized series of portraits. Renoir clearly wants us to see the Moulin De La Galette as men and women socialize in joyful harmony, but there was a darker side to the 19th century dance halls, which is suppressed. The dancing halls were also sites of prostitution where capitalism ruled, sex exploitation caused by the necessity that was derived of the crises generated by the industrialization - but in this picture, there none of that.

This painting is Renoir representation of his own fantasy - a escapist world, some sort of paradise enclosed in this small urban space.