the belief that an art devoted to the theme of modern leisure demanded an impromptu quality that somehow corresponded to the way of life it evoked. Viewed in a wider context, the assertive visibility of the brushwork in La Promenade would have marked it as the type of painting that appealed to a truly artistic viewership, in contrast to the popular appeal of genre paintings such as Toulmouche's. Two critics made this point in reviewing Renoir's Lise [FIGURE 12] at the 1868 Salon. Zacharie Astruc commented that it stood out from "commercial works" and won the approval of fellow artists and connalsseurs\ Jules Gastagnary noted its success among connaisseurs, stressing that this appeal derived from the boldness of its technique, especially from the halftones used to model the figure.68 These responses show how far Renoir's art was analyzed within the same terms of reference as Manet's in these years. As previously mentioned, Manet's concern for the tache of color marked his work out as "artistic"; in 1870 three critics who were close associates of Manet's—Astruc, Burty, and Duranty—all reiterated this connection between his technique and his audience in reviewing his work at the Salon, emphasizing the failure of the wider public to understand his art.69 Painting by taches served as a marker of the artist's distinctive, per- sonal vision and of his efforts to translate into paint his sensations of the world 70 around him. This aesthetic became the basis of the Impressionists' art in the 71 mid-18703, the years of their first group exhibitions. In these terms, the tech- nique of La Promenade makes it one of the first true Impressionist pictures. We must now explore its style and subject together in order to reveal Renoir's posi- tion within debates about modern art in Paris in 1870. 6 7