9781422271797

MASTERS OF ART

Pierre-Auguste Renoir was born in 1841, in Limoges, France. When he was still a small child, his family moved to Paris, where he attended a Catholic school. In 1862, he began studies at the École des Beaux Arts, where he met other important artists of the period, including Claude Monet and Alfred Sisley. As a young man, Renoir was an apprentice to a porcelain painter. In his spare time, he worked on his main interests—drawing and painting. In the early years, Renoir struggled financially. However, by the 1870s, Renoir’s fortunes changed when he became a founding member of the Impressionism movement. Eventually, Renoir became one of the most famous artists of his time. In 1890, Renoir married Aline Charigot and they had three sons. He died 1919 in Cagnes-sur-Mer, France.

THE ART OF RENOIR

T he history of Impressionism includes a few painters who are central to its development and a large number who are peripheral but nonetheless important because they add some small piece to the large jigsaw that wass the Impressionist Revolution. There are perhaps four painters at the center of the movement, each contributing something essential in its initial creative stages. They are Monet, Pissarro, Sisley, and Renoir, the role and contribution offered by Renoir being the least easy to define. His participation in the creation of what has become known as Impressionism is unquestionable, and during the period that he was working closely with him, his work certainly has an affinity with Monet’s. But outside this relatively short association of a little more than a decade, Renoir’s work goes through a number of developments, both before and after, that appear to have little connection with the characteristics that are

familiarly Impressionist. However, the general character and philosophy of the movement is recognized in his work. Perhaps what is important to establish is the earlier development of Renoir’s life before he encountered those painters in whose company the stylistic and philosophical character was developed, and also to examine the work that he produced after the break-up of the movement into independent directions after the last Impressionist exhibition in 1886. One general point, however, is undoubtedly true: Renoir has been so positively described as an Impressionist for so long that, however difficult it may be to accommodate his work at some stages, he will always be known as an Impressionist. That may be unfair to his overall aims and achievement and may limit recognition of his non-Impressionist work, even to devalue it. Further, his artistic aims and his attitude toward painting

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