Renoir’s Dance at Le Moulin de la Galette and R.E.M.’s Imitation of Life

“Like a Friday fashion show teenagerFreezing in the cornerTrying to look like you don’t try.”

Pierre-August Renoir, Dance at Le Moulin de la Galette, 1876

I was in the car the other day and R.E.M.’s song “Imitation of Life” came up on the radio. There is always something bittersweet, nostalgic and melancholy about R.E.M’s songs that just pierces me right in the heart every.single.time. And so it did this time as well. Driving in the car, sitting in the passanger seat literally in the car and symbolically in my life, and gazing out the window and the landscapes of blooming trees and houses passing by quickly, seeing the images disappear in the side mirror, is always wistful in and of itself, but this feeling of transience and melancholy only intensified when this song came on. I always get goosebumps when the music softens and Stipe’s voice comes clear and pure and vulnerable in these lines: “This lightning storm/This tidal wave/This avalanche, I’m not afraid/C’mon, c’mon no one can see me cry”… Yes, no one can see me cryyyyy….. I don’t know what makes R.E.M.’s songs so melancholy, perhaps it is the combination of darker lyrics with the upbeat sound (vibrant percussion and catchy guitar riffs). The song explores the themes of consumerism, the pursuit of happiness and the emptiness that often accompanies it. Most importantly it deals with the fakeness of the idealised images of happines and a yearning for something authentic, genuine. Though everything may appear perfect on the surface, something essential is missing under the surface. Cheerful tune hiding introspective lyrics; a technique that The Smiths have mastered and it is something that chimes with me.

When I searched the song on YouTube I saw the video for the first time and something that came to my mind was Renoir’s painting “The Dance at la Moulin de la Galette”, painted in 1876. Both the music video and the painting show a group of people enjoying their time, partying, and there is a lighthearted atmosphere in both. While the painting and the music video come from two different time period, from 1876 and 2001, and are two different mediums, they share visual and thematical elements and I found this connection too fascinating to miss out writing on. Both the painting and the video explore a fleeting moments of joy and the complexity of the social interactions. Renoir’s painting “Dance at La Moulin de la Galette” shows a vibrant and lively scene with Parisians dancing at an outdoor café in Montmartre, paris. The atmosphere is lightheart. People are enjoying themselves in the company of their friends and strangers alike. The joyful atmosphere is captured quickly in Renoir’s loose, playful brushstrokes which gives a sense of immediacy. It’s a sunny day and the light is flickering though the treetops. The video for R.E.M’s song “The Imitation of Life” also shows people enjoying themselves, on some kind of garden party in the perfect suburbian paradise world. Just like in Renoir’s painting the atmosphere here is lighthearted and the emphasis is on social interaction. Both in Renoir’s painting and the R.E.M.’s video the people are just common people, not some posh aristocrats or celebrities. While the people in Renoir’s painting seem to be genuinely having fun, the people in R.E.M.’s video seem a bit artificial, as if they are pretending, acting their roles in society. This dark realisation is in contrast with the garish, bright coloured clothing that all of them are wearing. As if the “happiness” is something fake and imposed, not something that they are all genuinely experiencing. Just as the camera in R.E.M.’s music video is focusing now on one detail of the party, now on another, I can imagine the same happening to Renoir’s painting. As I gaze at it my eye focuses on each detail, on each little group of people. In both artworks the ordinary and the everyday becomes art. The trivial is celebrated, but for Renoir this seems to be the true joie de vivre, but in R.E.M.’s, or rather, in our post-modern interpretations, everything takes ironic, mocking tones. This is all there is to life?, one might wonder. But the people in the garden party are too busy socialising to wonder about such things and let us leave them be.