Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841-1919)
A major figure and founder of Impressionism in the last third of the 19th century, Pierre-Auguste Renoir marvelously rendered the sparkle of light on things. Like his peers, he also sought to reinvent painting by preferring the spectacles of modern life to classical subjects, in which he captured the happiness of the moment like no other.
Carnavalet Museum / Roger-Viollet
Biography of artist Pierre-Auguste Renoir
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. He regularly visited the Louvre, where he admired the works of Peter Paul Rubens and 18th-century French painters such as Antoine Watteau, Jean-Honoré Fragonard and François Boucher. In March 1862, he passed the entrance exam for the École des Beaux-Arts (he was officially enrolled on April1 ), while at the same time enrolling in Charles Gleyre's private studio, where he made friends with Frédéric Bazille, Claude Monet and Alfred Sisley in the last months of 1863. From this year onwards, Renoir painted with them at Chailly-en-Bière, on the edge of the Fontainebleau forest, where he met Narcisse Diaz, who encouraged him to lighten his palette. 1863 was also the year of the Salon des Refusés, created by Napoleon III, where those excluded from the official Salon could show their work. Edouard Manet sent Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe (Musée d'Orsay, Paris), which was rejected by the official Salon.
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