Pierre-Auguste Renoir
(1841-1919)
Auguste Renoir’s painting is a celebration of life. Throughout his career, despite periods of doubt, crisis and discouragement, and despite the handicap and suffering inflicted by illness, he strove to capture the happiness of the moment.
At the age of 14, Auguste Renoir first learned the trade of porcelain painter. This gave him a taste for light, transparent tones.
Art historians usually distinguish five periods in Renoir’s work: the early years, marked by Courbet and Delacroix; the Impressionist years (1869-1880) or blue period; the sour manner, also known as Ingresque, until 1889; the pearly or ivory period until around 1899; and the final years, known as the red or rose period.
Renoir left the École des Beaux-Arts in 1864. With the arrival of fine weather, he worked with Claude Monet outdoors in the countryside at Chailly, then at Marlotte, where he met Gustave Courbet. They also visited the banks of the Seine, Bougival, Chatou and Argenteuil. In 1867, Renoir painted Lise à l’ombrelle (Folkwang Museum, Essen) which, with the light subdued by the leaves of the trees, echoes Monet’s work of the same period, notably in Le Déjeuner sur l’herbe (Musée d’Orsay, Paris). In the summer of 1869, the two artists painted together again at the water’s edge on the Île de la Grenouillère. In Renoir’s painting of the same name, the colored brushstrokes render the shimmering water and the effects of light (MET, New York). At the same time, his painting was still strongly influenced by both Gustave Courbet and Eugène Delacroix, as illustrated by theOdalisque of 1870 (National Gallery of Art, Washington). Edouard Manet’s painting, however, was an essential reference for these young artists. Like him, they strove to be of their time and paint what they saw. Their subjects are those of modern life. They paint their time as they see it: the capital, bustling with life; Baron Haussmann’s Paris, Parisian women dressed in the latest fashions, young women in their daily lives, milliners, laundresses, leisure activities, opera, theater, guinguettes, canoeing, regattas, etc. Un Atelier aux Batignolles (Musée d’Orsay, Paris), painted by Henri Fantin-Latour in 1870, is a tribute to Edouard Manet, seated while painting, around whom are grouped the young artists and writers who rallied to the “new painting” (Auguste Renoir, wearing a hat; Zacharie Astruc, sculptor and journalist; Émile Zola, spokesman for the painting revival; Edmond Maître, civil servant at the Hôtel de Ville; Frédéric Bazille and Claude Monet).
The paintings of Renoir and his friends emerged against a backdrop of crisis. In July 1870, the Franco-Prussian war broke out – taking the life of painter Frédéric Bazille. Monet and Camille Pissarro fled to London. Renoir was mobilized until March of the following year, when the Paris Commune began. Through Monet and Pissarro, he meets the art dealer Paul Durand-Ruel, who buys a few paintings from him in early 1872. In the summer, he painted on the banks of the Seine in Argenteuil with Claude Monet and Gustave Caillebotte, a major player in Impressionism with his painting and the unfailing support he gave his friends in trouble by buying their works.
In 1874 Renoir painted The Lodge (Courtauld, London), Parisienne (National Museum, Cardiff), Dancer (National Gallery of Art, Washington). “In 1874, in our paintings, we wanted cheerful harmony, life without literature.[2] “. These works, along with four others by him, featured in the first exhibition of the “Société anonyme des artistes peintres, sculpteurs, graveurs, etc.”, held at Nadar’s former studio, 35 boulevard des Capucines, from April 15 to May 15, 1874. Among the best-known artists were Edgar Degas (ten works), Claude Monet, Berthe Morisot (nine works each), Camille Pissarro, Alfred Sisley (five works each) and Paul Cézanne (three works). They form the core of the Impressionists. Renoir was in charge of the hanging. The works cause a scandal. Monet’s Impression, soleil levant, painted in 1872 (Musée Marmottan, Paris), which provoked much sarcasm, gave its name to the painting of these young artists. Renoir played an active role in organizing the group’s first exhibitions. In 1876, at the second exhibition, Degas presented twenty-four works, Monet and Renoir nineteen, including by the latter Portrait de jeune fille [mademoiselle Legrand] (Portrait of a young girl [mademoiselle Legrand])1875 (Philadelphia Museum of Art), Woman at the piano1875-1876 (Art Institute, Chicago), La Promenade, 1875-1876 (The Frick Collection, New York). Les Raboteurs de parquet by Gustave Caillebotte (Musée d’Orsay, Paris) are also in the exhibition. In parallel with the Impressionist event, Manet opened his studio to the public from April 15 to May1, his submissions to the official Salon having been rejected. The same year, writer and critic Edmond Duranty – notably in La Gazette des Beaux-Arts – published a brochure in support of the young artists: La Nouvelle peinture, about the group of artists exhibiting in the Durand-Ruel galleries.
Renoir was still heavily involved in preparations for the third exhibition in 1877. As the artist recalls in 1877, “I was the one who insisted on keeping the Impressionist name, which had made a fortune. It was a way of saying to passers-by – and no one was mistaken: ‘You’ll find here the kind of painting you don’t like. If you come, too bad for you, we won’t refund your ten cents a ticket.[3] ! ” The exhibition takes place in a vast apartment at 6 rue Le Peletier, not far from the Durand-Ruel gallery. Monet, Pissarro, Caillebotte and Renoir placed the works. The latter presented La Balançoire and Le Bal du Moulin de la Galette from 1876 (Musée d’Orsay, Paris); Cézanne, Baigneurs au repos, (Barnes Foundation, Merion), Caillebotte, Rue de Paris. Rainy weather (Art Institute, Chicago), Degas, L’Absinthe (Musée d’Orsay, Paris), and Monet plusieurs gares Saint-Lazare (Art Museums, Harvard; Art Institute, Chicago). These paintings are among the masterpieces executed by these artists today.
Renoir painted Madame Georges Charpentier and her children in 1878. Georges Charpentier was a prominent publisher of Émile Zola, Guy de Maupassant and Alfonse Daudet. In April 1879, he founded the magazine La Vie moderne, and the eponymous gallery, which gave considerable support to the Impressionists. Renoir’s brother Edmond was editor-in-chief in 1884 and 1885. His wife, Marguerite Charpentier, ran the salon. She entertained celebrities from the political, literary and artistic worlds. This work by Renoir and the Portrait of Mlle Jeanne Samary, a member of the Comédie française since the end of 1878, were accepted at the 1879 Salon. The fame of these two personalities in the cultural world was no doubt a factor. Having opted for the Salon, Renoir, along with Sisley and Cézanne, did not take part in the fourth Impressionist exhibition, held by independent artists from April 10 to May 11, 1879. The following year, Renoir exhibited at the Salon Pêcheuses de moules à Berneval (côte normande), 1879 (Barnes Foundation, Merion), Jeune fille endormie, 1880 (The Clark Museum, Williamstown) and two pastels. None of his works appeared in the Impressionist exhibition of that year. The artist met Aline Charigot, his future wife. Their first son Pierre was born in 1885; they married in 1890 and had two more sons, Jean and Claude. Madame Renoir was his preferred model for many paintings, notably Le Déjeuner des canotiers, 1880-1881 (The Philipps Collection, Washington D.C.).
Renoir’s work is deeply rooted in the real world. “Any work that emanates from the human imagination and has not taken its vital system from nature itself, is nothingness.[4] “he writes. For him, nature alone “possesses the very essence of art, which is variety in everything. It is the essence of life. It alone can give us the variety of composition, design and color necessary to make art.[5] “. He painted many landscapes, flowers and fruit. But it was undoubtedly the female figure that inspired him most. She is at the heart of his work. Madame Renoir, of course, but also the good Gabrielle, the women in his friendly and professional circle. “I fight with my figures until they become one with the landscape that serves as their background, and I want you to feel that they are not flat, nor are my trees.[6] “. His children and those of his close relations were also a privileged subject.
In 1881, with more money from the sale of his paintings, the artist traveled to Algeria. In Algeria, he confided, “the magic of the sun transforms palm trees into gold, water rolls diamonds and men look like Three Kings[7] “. At the end of the year, he travels to Italy – Venice, then Florence, Rome, Naples, Capri. In early January 1882, he travels to Palermo to see Wagner. Renoir was the only painter for whom the composer agreed to pose, Portrait de Wagner (Musée d’Orsay, Paris). On his return, he stayed in Provence. He reunited with Cézanne, painting at l’Estaque. Renoir visits Algeria again in March. On March
Edouard Manet died in 1883. A retrospective exhibition was devoted to him the following year, revealing the pioneering role of his painting in Impressionism. Also in 1883, Durand-Ruel offered Renoir a major solo exhibition. The year 1883 marked a turning point in Renoir’s work. “Around 1883, there was something of a break in my work. I’d gone all the way with Impressionism, and I’d come to the conclusion that I didn’t know how to paint or draw. In a word, I had reached a dead end,” Renoir told Ambroise Vollard.[8]. This period of crisis and questioning led Renoir to change his aesthetic. He abandoned the impressionist touch and returned to the line. The contours of forms became more precise and direct. This was the artist’s “Ingresque” period, illustrated by Les Grandes baigneuses, 1884-1887 (Museum of Art, Philadelphia). which he worked on for three years, proceeding by trial and error, trying to reconcile the tradition of 17th- and 18th-century French painting, such as that of Boucher, with modern painting. Les Grandes baigneuses met with critical hostility. The
On February 21, 1894, the painter Gustave Caillebotte, friend and patron of the Impressionists, died suddenly of a stroke while painting. He bequeathed two paintings by Jean-François Millet and sixty-five Impressionist pictures to the French state. Renoir is the executor of the estate. Forty paintings, including six by Renoir, were accepted by the State in 1896. They were exhibited at the Musée du Luxembourg the following year.
Also in 1897, Renoir’s work entered its final period, known as the red or rose period. He worked in a more direct style, without retouching, in tones dominated by red and orange. His favorite subjects were generously shaped figures. That same year, he bought a house in Essoyes, in the Aube region, the birthplace of Madame Renoir, where he spent the summer months.
A retrospective of his work was presented at the IX Venice Biennale in 1901 (thirty-seven works). At the turn of the century, suffering from acute rheumatic fever, the artist gradually settled in the Midi region. In 1903, he rented the Maison de la Poste in Cagnes.
The second Salon d’Automne (1904) devoted a retrospective to Paul Cézanne and one to Auguste Renoir (thirty-three paintings and two drawings), both of which made their mark on the artists of the new generation. His illness, which progressed rapidly, became increasingly debilitating. Renoir continued to paint in spite of it all.
On June 28, 1907, the artist bought the Collettes olive grove in Cagnes-sur-Mer, where he had a house designed by the architect Febvre. The Renoir family moved in in November 1908.
The artist exhibited five paintings at the Armory Show in New York in 1913, where some works by the next generation of artists caused a scandal, such as Marcel Duchamp’s Nude Descending a Staircase (1912) (Museum of Art, Philadelphia). That same year, at Ambroise Vollard’s initiative, Renoir turned to sculpture. To help him in this task, Vollard introduced him to Richard Guino, recommended by Aristide Maillol, whose most talented assistant-collaborator he was. The two artists established a real bond, working together both in Essoyes and in Cagnes-sur-Mer, at Les Collettes, where Renoir had a kiln installed in 1917. A multi-talented artist, Guino also introduced the painter’s sons, Pierre, Jean and Claude, to ceramics.
Mobilized when war was declared in August 1914, the painter’s sons Pierre and Jean were wounded in action. At the end of June 1915, Madame Renoir suffered cardiac arrest. Andrée Heuschling, known as Dédée, Jean’s future wife (1920), was Renoir’s last model – Blonde à la rose 1915-1917 (Musée de l’Orangerie, Paris). With the help of Richard Guino, the artist undertook large-scale figures in the round, such as Grande Vénus Victrix and Maternité, followed by new sculptures from the following year. The collaboration between the two men came to an end in the early days of 1918. On January 13, 1918, Henri Matisse visited Renoir for the second time in less than a fortnight. He wrote to his wife that he had “seen some amazing paintings.[9] “. A leader of avant-garde art at the turn of the century, Matisse initiated an aesthetic turnaround with his Odalisques. He returned to Les Collettes several times until April 1919.
Renoir died of pulmonary congestion on December 3, 1919. He is buried in Essoyes. The following year’s Salon d’Automne paid tribute to him with thirty paintings in his last style. In 1923, the painter’s sons donated Les Baigneuses, 1918-1919 (Musée d’Orsay, Paris) to the Musée du Louvre. “Renoir considered them a culmination. He thought he had summed up his entire life’s research in them, and prepared a good springboard for future research.[10] “(J. Renoir, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, mon père, Paris, Hachette, 1962, folio 1999, quoted in Écrits, p. 244, n.198).
In 1960, the municipality of Cagnes-sur-Mer bought the Collettes estate, the house and part of the park, from Claude Renoir, the artist’s youngest son, with the intention of turning it into a museum. The museum’s collections were gradually enriched by donations and acquisitions. They were also supplemented by deposits from the Musée d’Orsay.
RENOIR GRAVEUR
Renoir came to printmaking fairly late in his career, after the crisis of 1883, when he felt he had reached the end of Impressionism and needed to return to line, to more precise drawing. The subjects of his prints are the same as those of his paintings. In fact, most of his prints are based on motifs already worked in oil, pencil, pastel or watercolor.
Renoir probably executed his first etching before August 1888 (printed by Delatre) at Stéphane Mallarmé’s request, to illustrate the poem “Le Phénomène futur” in the collection Tiroir de laque (ed. Deman). The print was eventually published as the frontispiece to the collection Pages 1891. His last etchings date from 1908, and include three portraits of his son Claude, and the only landscape in his body of work. In the meantime, Renoir composed some twenty etchings and/or soft varnishes on the subjects most representative of his work, such as La Danse à la campagne, les baigneuses, reclining nudes, family subjects, as well as Mère et enfant (his son Jean) – the latter appeared in the first album published by Ambroise Vollard, Les Peintres graveurs, 1896 -, not to mention, of course, Chapeau épinglé engraved in 1894 and reproduced in lithograph three years later, as well as in 1898. Julie Manet (daughter of Berthe Morisot and Eugène Manet, the painter’s brother) pins her cousin Paule Gobillard’s hat. There is a polychrome print (eleven colors) and monochrome prints in several hues (black, sanguine, bistre green, bistre, orange), all of roughly the same large “mural” format (60 x 50 cm). Other Renoir lithographs of considerable size include L’Enfant à la balle (60 x 51 cm) printed in 1900, and Maternité (54 x 48 cm) in 1912.
With a few exceptions, Renoir’s lithographs are Vollard editions printed by Auguste Clot. L’Enfant au cookie, 1898, and a bather from 1896 were to appear in Vollard’s third Album d’estampes originales planned for 1898, but never published. Portraits of Richard Wagner circa 1900; Paul Cézanne in 1902; Auguste Rodin circa 1910-14, Amboise Vollard and Louis Valtat are included in the suite Douze lithographies originales de Pierre-Auguste Renoir, published by Vollard in 1919.
[1] Albert André, Renoir, Paris, Georges Crès, 1919, reprinted in Augustin de Butler (ed.), Renoir. Writings, interviews, letters on art Paris, Les Éditions de l’Amateur, 2002, p. 26.
[2] Remarks by Auguste Renoir reported by Georges Besson, Renoir, Paris, Georges Crès, 1929, p. 4.
[3] Remarks by Auguste Renoir reported by Ambroise Vollard, Renoir, Paris, Georges Crès, 1920, p. 66.
[4] Auguste Renoir, “Grammaire 1883-1884”, reprinted in Butler 2002, p. 57
[5] Ibid.
[6] Remarks by Auguste Renoir reported in Albert André, Renoir, Paris, Georges Crès, 1919; reprinted in Butler 2002, p. 27.
[7] Georges Rivière, Renoir et ses amis, Paris, H. Floury, 1921, p. 190.
[8] Vollard 1920, p. 135.
[9] Archives Henri Matisse, Issy-les-Moulineaux.
[10] Jean Renoir, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, mon père, Paris, Hachette, 1962, reissued Gallimard collection folio, 1999, quoted in Butler 2002, p. 244, n.198.