Luncheon of the Boating Party - Pierre-Auguste Renoir

Its believed that Renoir used just five colors in his palette and his time as a porcelain painter taught him how to combine different colors well. Impressionism was very much defined by its use of light colors and it was a style based on quick brush strokes but a trip to Italy introduced Renoir to the work of the Renaissance artists Raphael, Velazquez, and Rubens and this inspired him to change his technique and experiment with a more decorative and traditional style.

Pierre-Auguste Renoir - The Seine at Asnières

In his early career, Renoir spent a great deal of time sketching on the Seine river banks at Asnières, Argenteuil, and Chatou with his friend and fellow Frenchman Claude Monet. It was during these meetings that the two young artists developed their famous technique and experimented with the bright colors that later became central to Impressionism. It was also during this time of practicing painting light and water in the open air that Renoir and Monet discovered that the color of shadows is not brown or black, but the reflected color of the objects surrounding them.