Renoir: Pastels E-Book

Christian Connor

• Herausgeber: Christian Connor
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2015

Beschreibung

Renoir first began to conduct experiment with pastel soon after Manet and Degas, in the mid-1870s, and his interest in the medium increased through the next decade. In contrast to his drawings, which he exhibited rarely, he considered his pastels an essential part of his art work and frequently showed them in public. He rarely employed pastel for his formal portrait commissions, however, reserving the medium for works in which the sitters were friends or family (and almost exclusively young women and children, whom he saw as particularly appropriate subjects for the delicate, luminous effects of pastel). One contemporary critic has explained Renoir's pastels: "If he frequently used that medium to depict those near and dear to him, it was because pastel, which combines color with line, gave him the possibility of working rapidly to capture in all their vividness the rapid flash of intelligence and the fleeting show of emotion".

Leseprobe

Renoir:Pastels

ByChristian Connor

First Edition

Copyright © 2015 byChristian Connor

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Renoir: Pastels

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Foreword

Pierre Auguste Renoir was a French artist, and was a leading painter of the Impressionist style. As a young boy, he worked in a porcelain factory. His drawing skills were early recognized, and he was soon employed to create designs on the fine china. He also painted decorations on fans before beginning artschool.He moved to Paris in 1862 to study art, where he met Frederic Bazille, Claude Monet, and Alfred Sisley, all great impressionist painters. By 1864, he was exhibiting works at the Paris Salon, but his works went largely unnoticed for the next ten years, mostly in part to the disorder caused by the Franco-Prussian War.

Later, during the Paris Commune on 1871, Renoir was painting on the banks of the Seine River, when he was approached by a number of members from the commune, who thought he was a spy. They threatened to throw in into the river, but he was saved by the leader of the commune, Raoul Rigault, whom he had protected on an earlier occasion. He experienced his first artistic success in 1874, at the first Impressionist Exhibition, and later in London of the same year. In 1881, Renoir began his world travels, voyaging to Italy to see the works of the Renaissance masters, and later to Algeria, following in the footsteps of Eugene Delacroix. It was in Algeria where he encountered a serious bout with pneumonia, leaving him bed ridden for six weeks, and permanently damaging his respiratory system.

In the later years of his life, not even severe rheumatoid arthritis, which left him confined to a wheelchair and limited his movement, could deter Renoir from painting. His arthritis eventually got so bad as to leave a permanent physical deformity of his hands and shoulder, which required him to change his painting technique to adapt to his physical limitations. Before his death in 1919, Renoir traveled to the Louvre to see his paintings hanging in the museum alongside the masterpieces of the great masters. He was a prolific artist, created several thousands artworks in his lifetime, and include some of the most well-known paintings in the art world.

Renoir first began to experiment with pastel in the mid-1870s, shortly after Manet and Degas, and his interest in the medium intensified during the following decade. In contrast to his drawings, which he exhibited infrequently, he considered his pastels an integral part of his oeuvre and regularly showed them in public (for example, at the First and Second Impressionist Exhibitions, the 1879 and 1880 Salons, and his solo exhibitions at La Vie Moderne in 1879 and Durand-Ruel in 1883). He rarely employed pastel for his formal portrait commissions, however, reserving the medium for works in which the sitters were friends or family (and almost exclusively young women and children, whom he saw as particularly appropriate subjects for the delicate, luminous effects of pastel).

François Daulte has explained, "If he frequently used that medium to depict those near and dear to him, it was because pastel, which combines color with line, gave him the possibility of working rapidly to capture in all their vividness the rapid flash of intelligence and the fleeting show of emotion"

Pastels

Portrait of a young woman

1870, pastel

Based on the features of the sitter in Portrait d'une jeune femme, it is very possible that Renoir is here depicting Lise Tréhot, his model and mistress whom he painted around 20 times between 1865 and 1872. Renoir met Lise at the home of his artist-friend Jules Le Coeur, who was dating Lise's older sister, and he memorialized her in different guises: for example, in Diana, as a monumental nude, goddess of the hunt; in Lise, as a fashionable Parisienne strolling with an umbrella; in Woman of Algiers, as a reclining, exotically costumed odalisque; and in Bather, as a modern-day nude who has shed her dress in preparation for a dip in a pond. The distinctive facial features of Lise in Diana and Bather especially recall those of the sitter in Portrait d'une jeune femme, notably her wavy brunette hair, oval face, porcelain skin, dark eyes and eyebrows, long nose, and full mouth. By the mid 1870s, Renoir was no longer painting Lise, who had married, focusing instead on Camille Monet, wife of his good friend Claude Monet, as a favorite model.

At the Moulin de la Galette

1875, pastel