Renoir masterpiece goes on show at Ulster Museum

La Loge depicts Renoir's brother Edmond and Parisian model Nini Lopez

A masterpiece by Renoir is being shown in Northern Ireland for the first time when the Ulster Museum opens on Friday.

La Loge, or 'The Theatre Box', depicts a young couple watching a play and was part of the first impressionist exhibition in Paris in 1874.

Museums, galleries and libraries reopen on Friday as a result of the easing of some coronavirus restrictions.

However, theatres and music venues remain closed to audiences with no date yet on when they can reopen.

That is not the case for museums, galleries and libraries - but many will have limited capacity.

The Ulster Museum, for instance, is asking people to book a time slot to visit the museum via its website.

But viewing Pierre-Auguste Renoir's La Loge and other works in a new exhibition on impressionism by artists like Manet and Morisot is free.

The curator of art at National Museums Northern Ireland, Anna Liesching, told BBC News NI that La Loge was at the centre of the first impressionist exhibition, which changed the course of art.

"Whenever you look up Renoir, this is the painting that comes up," she said.

"It really represents the shift in art that was going on at that time in France and these people who became known as the impressionists."

Anna Liesching said the painting "raised a few eyebrows" when it was first put on public display

Impressionism is characterised by the use of light and colour to create an impression of motion and spontaneity.

It was an artistic movement initially greeted with derision, but became hugely influential, and impressionists like Renoir, Cassatt, Monet and Degas are some of the most famous artists in history.

Anna Liesching said La Loge epitomised the impressionist movement.

'Raised a few eyebrows'

"The fact it shows the theatre also shows a cultural shift in France at that time," she said.

"Theatre was becoming accessible to people, and this painting epitomises that new access to culture for people and also the shift in how artists were treating paint and the subject matter in their paintings as well.

"It definitely raised a few eyebrows because of the subject matter, the sitters in the painting and the way the paint itself was treated.

"It started the shift in what we now know as modern art.

"The impressionists were the anarchists and agitators of their time."

The woman depicted in La Loge is Parisian model Nini Lopez while her male companion is Renoir's brother Edmond.

Due to the continuing restrictions they will be the only couple in a theatre in Northern Ireland this Christmas.

The exhibition, titled Renoir and the New Era: Impressionist works from The Courtauld, runs at the Ulster Museum until April 2021.