Pierre-Auguste Renoir was recognised for the harmony of his outlines, the brilliance of color, and the intense charm of his wide variety of subjects. Unlike other impressionists he was equally interested in painting the single human figure or family group portraits as well as in landscapes
He was born in Limoges, but his family moved to Paris when he was four years old. His talent for drawing was evident in early years. when he was thirteen, He worked as an apprentice in a workshop for porcelain painting. He spent several years painting flowers on plates. He was trained in painting figures of Marie-Antoinette on the white porcelain cups. During his lunch times he would visit the art galleries of the Louvre to view the art of the masters. When that business failed, he got a second job painting decorative scenes in the manner of Watteau, but finally, in 1862, he left that job and began studying painting formally, in the workshop of Charles Gleyre, where he met Sisley, Bazille, and Monet.
The group painted in the open air, away from the studio, they developed a style that was later called impressionism. It was based on using pure colors without blending the colors on the easel, as mixing darkens the original colors. The impressionists favored landscapes and open naural environments but Renoir liked to paint people in cafes, in gardens, in their homes.
These young impressionist artists met Edgar Degas and Edouard Manet as well as leading writers like Emile Zola and art critics. The concepts of impressionism developed from this group meeting in the cafes of Paris. Renoir and Monet produced their first impressionist paintings during the summer of 1869. After initial rejections by exhibition jury, impressionalism slowly emerged as the revolution from the classical painting era.
In 1871 Renoir met Paul Durand-Ruel, the first art dealer to support impressionist paintings. Renoir madeenough sales to move into a large studio in the Rue St Georges.
Renoir met Aline Charigot a pretty girl about 20 years younger in 1880. Aline had been his favourite model. He painted his impressionist masterpiece The Luncheon of the Boating Party in which she modelled. In 1882 he returned from his tour to Paris to marry her.
Renoir travelled first to Normandy, Algeria, Spain to see the work of Velázquez in Madrid and then to see Titian's work in Florence and Raphael in Rome.
His tour heavily influenced his future work. In Italian art style he noticed a clarity of compostion, sharper outline and smoother glossy colors. He had been unhappy with his own work for some time and destroyed many of his paintings. In the late 1880s he felt he had reached the end of Impressionism. He had become averse to the depiction of changing moods of the the moment. "It is in the museum that one must learn to paint. One must make the paintings of one's own time, but it is there in the museum that one develops the taste for painting, which nature alone cannot provide." The influence of Italian art on Renoir is evident in paintings of the bathers. The bathers. This can be considered his classical phase.
From 1887 he painted a long series of studies of a group of nude female figures known as the Bathers.These painting show hardness of outline, smooth glossy texture and clarity of colour rendering the lustrous, pearly color and texture of skin in depiction of feminine grace.
Gentleness, shape, color, light and pleasure were the key features during this period.
His style of the 1890s changed, in describing voluptuous nudes, radiant children, and lush summer landscapes. From 1903, Renoir fought the paralysis attacks of arthritis at this same time. His colors became cooler and smoother.
Renoir began to suffer from rheumatic arthritis in 1888. He had an attack of facial paralysis, and in the last phase of his life, he had frequent attacks of paralysis and vision problems. He had brushes tied to his hands with string and ribbons while painting. He continued painting almost til the end of his life in 1919. He died of pneumonia in 1919. |
