Meet Pierre-Auguste Renoir

Read About the Artist Pierre-Auguste Renoir

The artist who uses the least of what is called imagination will be the greatest.Pierre-Auguste Renoir

With Claude Monet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir helped found Impressionism, freeing painting from having to tell a story. Instead, artists could simply capture what they saw.

Renoir was the son of a tailor in Limoges, France. He saved the money he earned from painting onto china, fans, and window shades to move to Paris. His first major influences included the artist Gustave Courbet and the Old Masters whose works were on display in the Louvre Museum in Paris.

Inspired by the Impressionists in the late 1860s, Renoir began using broken brushstrokes. His colors became lighter, and he composed his canvases using patches of colored light. And unlike Monet, Renoir was also interested in painting the human figure.

Renoir stopped exhibiting with the Impressionists after 1877, when his portraits were accepted by the Salon, whose wide audience helped him market his work. He had success as a portrait painter, and traveled widely. In 1881, having “wrung Impressionism dry,” he left France and went to Italy. He was influenced by the Renaissance masters, and aimed at painting a classic form while retaining the Impressionist palette’s luminosity.

In later years, Renoir developed severe arthritis and used a wheelchair, so he painted with a brush strapped to his hand. He also created sculptures, dictating instructions to an assistant who worked the clay.

Questions

Write or discuss your responses.

• What does it mean that Impressionism freed “painting from having to tell a story”?

• What does Renoir’s determination to keep creating art despite his disabilities in later years, reveal about the importance of artmaking to him?

In late 19th-century France, some artists painted pictures that look like they were quickly sketched, using lots of small dots and strokes of color to create scenes that capture feelings and moments, like the way sunlight looks on water or the colors of a garden.