People still struggle with the sentimental late work of Pierre-Auguste Renoir – which is why, for its first show about the French artist in almost two decades, the National Gallery is focusing on his “crucial” earlier years, from the mid-1860s to the mid-1880s, coinciding with the emergence of impressionism. The theme is appealing: Renoir’s imagery of “affection, seduction, conversation, male camaraderie and […] merry-making, flirtation, courtship”. And the star loan – Bal au Moulin de la Galette (1876), a cheery, dappled view of Parisians dancing and relaxing in a garden on the Butte Montmartre, coming to Britain for the first time – would, by itself, justify the price of admission.
National Gallery, London WC2 (nationalgallery.org.uk), from Oct 3 until Jan 31 2027
