Description
Two young women sit on the grass in the shade of heavy shrubbery. The one at the left wears a deep blue jacket over a white lace front, her dark hair pinned high with a red ribbon, her hands in her lap and her eyes lowered. The one at the right has spread a white summer dress wide across the grass, wears a yellow ornament in her hair, holds a small posy of pink and white flowers, and looks away to the left.
What surprises about this canvas is how dark it is. Renoir fills three quarters of it with deep greens and near blacks, lightening only at the upper left where a meadow opens with a scatter of pink blossom. A pale grey mauve bundle lies in the grass at the lower left.
The two dresses carry the entire light of the picture. Blue and white against that wall of green, and nothing else competes.



