Pierre-Auguste Renoir: Confidence (1897)

“Painted in 1897, Confidence captures a couple in a private moment of conversation, the woman’s lips slightly parted as she leans in to speak, the man’s head lowered in a posture of concentration. The intimacy of the scene is emphasized by the extremely close vantage point, with both heads abruptly cropped by the edges of the canvas. Renoir’s focus is on the figures’ overlapping profiles, which interlock like the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. The dialogue between their forms is heightened by the light that enters from the direction of the viewer, reflecting off the side of the man’s face while casting the woman’s features into shadow. At the same time, the scene is unified by the warm, restrained palette of cream, russet, and…