Nobody painted pleasure like Renoir. From the 1860s through the 1880s—years when he was still experimenting—Renoir built a body of work devoted to the textures of Parisian life: couples waltzing in open air, friends raising glasses in dappled light, lovers locking eyes across a crowded room. The National Gallery is presenting 40 such paintings—homages to delight—in a show organized with the Musée d’Orsay and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. The headline loan is Bal au Moulin de la Galette (1876) from the Musée d’Orsay. This magnificent painting of a beer-hall dance in Montmartre, figures whirling in and out of pink and blue light, is on display in the U.K. for the first time. —Elena Clavarino