|
| Biography: |
|
Pierre-Auguste Renoir
(1841-1919)
Pierre-Auguste Renoir was born in Limoges and brought up in Paris, where his father, a tailor with a large family, settled in 1845. From the age of thirteen he worked as an apprentice painter, painting flowers on porcelain plates. This early apprenticeship left a certain trace on his art, which was always decorative in spite of its later realism. After machines for coloring ceramics had been introduced, he had to switch to decorating fans and screens. Having saved some money, in 1862 Renoir entered the Atelier Gleyre and there made friends with Monet, Sisley and Bazille; some time later he met Pissarro and C¨¦zanne.
He first exhibited at the Salon in 1864; after that the jury rejected his works and only in 1867 accepted Lise, portrait of his model and lover Lise Trehot. In 1867, he and Monet lived at Bazille¡¯s house. In 1868-1870, he shared a studio with Bazille in Paris. Young artists sat for each other, i.e. Frederic Bazille at His Easel by Renoir and Portrait of Pierre-Auguste Renoir by Bazille. He spent the summer of 1869 with Monet at Bougival on the Seine; together they worked out the main principles of the Impressionist method. It was most strongly manifested in the plein-air studies of La Grenouill¨¨re (1869). See and compare La Grenouillere by Monet and La Grenouillere by Renoir, the painters worked side by side.
It was in the 1870s, that Renoir¡¯s Impressionism style reached its peak. He worked at Argenteuil and in Paris. He participated in the Impressionist exhibitions of 1874, 1876, 1877 and 1882 and was a founding member of the review L¡¯Impressionniste (1877), where he published his article on the principles of contemporary art. The Swing and the great composition of Le Moulin de la Galette, one of the finest, most smiling of his masterpieces, the models for which were his friends, mostly artists, and Montmartre girls. It is like a marvelous tissue of interwoven sunlight and soft hazy blue.
Renoir achieved recognition earlier than his friends. In 1879-80, he sent several portraits to the official Salon, among them Portrait of the Actress Jeanne Samary and Portrait of Mme Charpentier and Her Children. The artist found himself at a critical point. In 1880, he met Aline Charigot, a common woman, whom he would marry in 1890, they had 3 sons: Pierre (1885-), Jean (1894 - ), who would become an important film director, and Claude (1901- ), called ¡°Coco¡±. The same year, 1880, Renoir broke his right arm and for some time painted with his left hand. In 1881, he traveled to Algeria, later to Italy, where he was impressed by Raphael and the Pompeii frescoes. The Luncheon of the Boating Party is certainly one of Renoir¡¯s finest canvases.
In the 1880s, he abandoned Impres.... |
|
