Grand Canal, Venice

When Renoir’s Venetian pictures were first exhibited, one critic called them, “the most outrageous series of ferocious daubs that any slanderer of Venice could possibly imagine.” They constituted a radical departure from traditional Venetian "vedute"—detailed paintings emphasizing the architecture of the city’s famous monuments. Barely recognizable as the stretch of canal between the Ca’ Foscari palace and the Rialto Bridge, Renoir’s picture dissolves the stone façades, leaving their glistening reflections of pink, yellow and orange on the water below.