Image: Diana the Huntress (1867), oil on canvas painting by French painter Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841-1919), dimensions 197 cm x 132 cm, currently located at the National Gallery of Art, Washington (D.C.)
Diana the Huntress is a study of the female figure and an expression of Renoir's heightened personal response to female sensuality. This kind of style was the mainstay of the academic tradition. The model in the painting is Lise Tréhot, Renoir's mistress and inspiration for a number of his paintings. As is found in Renoir's early work, there is evidence of the influence of the realist painter Gustave Courbet. Though the subject is mythological, the painting is a naturalistic studio work, in which the figure was carefully observed, modeled and superimposed on a contrived landscape. Renoir just added a bow, a dead animal, and the deerskin to transform Lise into Diana, the mythological goddess of hunting. Also, Renoir used a palette knife to apply his pigments, a favorite technique of Courbet.
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